


The Tower

by jenny_of_oldstones



Series: The Black Tower [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Child Abuse, M/M, Mages and Templars, Molestation, Non-Canonical Ostwick Circle, The Circle, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25233049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: As a child, Jack Trevelyan escaped from the Circle of Ostwick.He refused to speak of what happened to him and swore never to return. Now, a rift has opened inside the abandoned Circle tower, and only the Inquisitor can seal it. Trevelyan will have to return to the site of his worst nightmares, a dark tower out at sea, where the past waits for him with open jaws.
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Male Trevelyan, Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Series: The Black Tower [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060790
Comments: 203
Kudos: 217





	1. Chapter 1

For a moment, Trevelyan wondered if a cruel joke was being played on him. A high-pitched buzzing replaced the words coming out of Josephine’s mouth, until the rattle of his teacup against its saucer brought him back to himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Could you repeat that last part?”

“Of course,” said Josephine, surprised. “I said, a number of Ostwick’s noble families have petitioned us to seal a rift that has been causing disturbances near the city. The rift, according to them, is inside the Circle tower.”

“As you know, Ostwick Circle is located on an island two miles out at sea,” said Cullen, placing a marker on the war table. “It’s been abandoned for years, but strange lights have been seen coming from it at night. Merchant ships and fishermen have begun to avoid the port out of the fear that demons and undead will soon plague the city.”

“Much like they did in Crestwood,” said Leliana. “If the rift is powerful enough, its distance from the mainland won’t matter.”

“For now, there haven't been any sightings of demons, but we should consider it an eventuality,” said Cullen.

“The nobles of the city will be most amenable if we come to their aid. They are starved for commerce and deeply frightened,” said Josephine. “The Trevelyans remain quiet, but that's nothing new. Not even an impending flood of demons could persuade them to ask for your help.”

The statement was meant to lift the mood, but Trevelyan couldn't have given less of a damn about his family at that moment. “They're certain there's a rift on the island?”

“Most certain,” said Leliana. “The signs are identical to what we've seen from other tears in the Veil.”

“It is my recommendation that we take advantage of this opportunity,” said Josephine. “Both in the interest of saving lives and to collect debts from Ostwick’s most powerful.”

“Agreed,” said Cullen. “A city that large could turn into a hotbed of possession if the Veil remains un-mended.”

“But you're _sure_ there's a rift there?” said Trevelyan.

His advisors stared at him.

“As much as we are able to confirm without sending agents to the island,” said Leliana. “Yes, we are relatively certain. Are you all right?”

Trevelyan felt his skin prickle. He had drawn attention to himself. The mage had gotten too emotional, bleated a little too loudly, and now they were concerned. 

“I'm fine,” he said. “I simply have little desire to make the trip unnecessarily.”

“We are well aware you have little fondness for your old Circle,” said Josephine, gently. “We would not recommend this course of action to you unless it was of the utmost importance.”

“Rest assured, there are no Templars there, or mages for that matter,” said Cullen. “And you won’t be alone. Your entourage will be with you. Weather permitting, you will be in the tower for less than a day.”

They really didn't know. Trevelyan had always assumed they must have some inkling of what happened at Ostwick Circle, but here at last was proof that they didn't have a clue.

And why should they? The Chantry had done everything in its power to bury its dirty secret. All his advisors knew was that he was an apostate who had escaped the Circle as a boy. Whatever had happened to him at Ostwick could hardly be any worse than what mages suffered in other Circles. The tower was just a tower, and this was just a mission.

How would they react if he told them the truth? 

That Ostwick Circle was where the Templar Order had experimented on mages. That the rocky shores around the island were littered with bones. That the Knight-Commander had strapped him to a table when he was fourteen years old and vivisected him like an animal. 

He had never spoken of it before. As much as he ranted against the injustice of the Circle, his own experience was impossible to put into words. For seventeen years, he had kept his silence, while the Chantry hid all trace of its wrongdoing from the world. Between the two of them, Ostwick Circle was forgotten. The final fate of the tower in the years after his escape had always been a mystery to him, but the official story was that rebel mages had rioted within the tower in 9:28, leading to a bloodbath and the death of every mage and Templar on the island. A contingent of Seekers who went to the tower afterwards burned the bodies and declared the matter closed. The story rang false on multiple levels, but it had confirmed something Trevelyan had long suspected: that he was the only mage who got away. He had escaped before the Seekers could purge the truth, and now his testimony was the only proof that any of it had happened. 

But what did it matter, really? There was still a rift to be sealed. His history with the tower was hardly a justification for ignoring the plight of thousands. The truth might shock his advisors, but in the end they would remind him of his duty, and they would be right. At best, it would gain him a moment's pity. At worst, it would prove to them that their self-righteous, too-proud mage Inquisitor was possibly damaged and needed to be kept an eye on. It would weaken him in their eyes, and the last thing he could afford in front of these mundanes was weakness. 

_Empty_.

“You’re right,” said Trevelyan. “Forgive me. I was hoping to visit that oasis our scouts have been talking about out west. Ostwick will be dreary by comparison.”

“Fear not, Inquisitor,” said Josephine, smiling. “I will arrange a fast ship. You’ll return within a fortnight.”

“And I’ll make sure House Trevelyan behaves itself,” said Leliana. “You won't have to face them at any point.”

“Thank you,” he said, sick. “Is there any other business, or are we adjourned for the afternoon?”

“I’m done, if everyone else is,” said Cullen.

“I am as well,” said Josephine. “I will get on making the preparations for your voyage.”

“See you at dinner,” said Trevelyan, setting his cup and saucer down on the war table. He forced himself to walk slowly to the great hall. At that moment, all he wanted was to head to the library and find Dorian, but his legs carried him to the garden instead. 

* * *

He sat in a grotto with his head in his hands.

 _Empty_ , he told himself. _You are a will inside a body. Emotions are not real. They can be poured out like dirty water. Empty._

For the first time in years, the mantra did not work. He had always been able to snuff out any emotion that penetrated the ice inside him and was unused to being so agitated. 

_Empty_ , he thought, closing his eyes. _Empty. You are a will inside a body. Emotions are the mind’s dysfunction. Empty._

He tried to organize his thoughts. In a few days, he would be back in Ostwick Circle. He would walk the same dark passages he had as a boy, hear the muffled crash of waves that had haunted his dreams for years. The shock of it was still too fresh to wrap his mind around, but his body understood plainly.

He was going back to the place that had broken him.

Ostwick Circle. The Black Tower. A place even the Templars considered a prison, as the Seekers had forbade them from leaving the island without permission. It was a pit. A dollhouse of madness and despair.

He slid his fingers over his shaved head until they came to rest on his scar. 

He hadn't even told Josephine who he wanted to take on the mission. She would choose for him, and he shuddered to think who might end up on the roster. He had taken it for granted for so long that his old life was buried and gone that the thought of it exposed now horrified him. Most of his companions were kind, and he would even call some of them friends, but they also put him on a pedestal. He was their cold, unbreakable Inquisitor, and that image carried power. What would happen if his companions found some scrap of evidence that the Chantry overlooked and learned what had been done to him? 

Solas would lose respect for him, as would Bull, if he ever had any. Vivienne would stick her needles into every crack in his armor, and Sera would roll her eyes and say big deal, she knew loads of people who had it worse. Cassandra would whisper to Cullen that they best put Templars outside his door, lest he lose himself to a despair demon in a fit. They might question his decisions, reduce his fight for mage liberation to petty trauma, undermine him based on his personal _feelings_. 

And Dorian...

What would Dorian say if he found out? He looked at Trevelyan the same way all the others did: as someone more than human. Would his affection survive if he knew that behind the mask of the Inquisitor there was nothing but mutilated flesh and scar tissue? That Trevelyan's ironclad control didn't come from preternatural ability but from having some basic humanity cut out of him as a child? 

No one will find out anything, he decided. The tower was empty. All he had to do was remain in control. 

_Empty_ , he willed himself, against the pounding of his heart. _Empty_. 

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed in a daze. He watched himself sign orders, negotiate trade deals, and mingle with courtiers. His body hurt strangely as he sat down to dinner that night, and it was difficult to pay attention in the roar and sweltering heat of the great hall. 

"Are you well, Inquisitor?" whispered Josephine. 

Trevelyan roused. He had been staring into space. "I'm fine." He cut into the lamb on his plate. "Just tired."

Josephine sighed. "I know how you feel. Rest assured, I have made accommodations to ensure your trip is as swift and comfortable as possible. You will never be far from a soft bed." 

Trevelyan's knife scratched on the plate as he tried to cut a strip of gristle in half. "Your work ethic puts us all to shame, Lady Montilyet." 

Josephine smiled and went back to her conversation with Leliana. 

"I don't envy you the trip," said Cullen, on Trevelyan's right. His own lamb had been served undercooked and sat untouched in a puddle of congealing blood. "I never met any Templar or mage from Ostwick Tower, but I've heard it's a gloomy spot." 

"That's one way to describe it," said Trevelyan.

"It was small compared to other Circles, wasn't it?" asked Cullen. "I always heard it had fewer than a hundred mages." 

"Fifty, at most," said Trevelyan, focusing on cutting his lamb. 

"Some in the ranks used to tell ghost stories about it," said Cullen. "I never believed any of them, but the place does have a reputation, especially given how it ended." He paused. "You have never spoken of your time there." 

"It's not something I like to remember," said Trevelyan. 

Cullen fidgeted. He often treated Trevelyan like a vicious dog, one who might accept a scratch behind the ear one moment and bite fingers off the next. Trevelyan couldn't blame him. There were days where he almost felt himself liking Cullen, and other days when he remembered what he had done at Kirkwall and wanted to put his head in a noose. If not for Corypheus, the two of them would be mortal enemies--or at least that was how Trevelyan felt. Cullen seemed intent to forget his own history as a Templar in a way Trevelyan never could. 

"I know the Circle is...an ill-fit for some," said Cullen, carefully. "And am aware of the horrors that can take place behind closed doors. Did something happen to you there?" 

"No more than what happens to any mage in the Circle," said Trevelyan. The great hall was very hot. "Does it take 'something' for a man to want to escape a cage?" 

"No, I just...." Cullen trailed off. As usual, his cowardice turned him away from the more difficult conversation. "Forgive me. I wish we did not have to send you back to a place you despise. This war demands a great deal from all of us." 

Trevelyan was struck with a sudden desire to drive his knife into Cullen's eye and twist until the jelly came out. No sooner had it flashed inside him did it vanish, replaced with fatigue.

He shoved his chair back. As was custom, everyone else in the great hall stood up with him in a cacophony of scraping chairs and benches. 

"I'm turning in," he told Josephine. "It'll be a long day tomorrow." 

"Sleep well," she said. "I will see you bright and early. Your ship sails out of Highever anon, Inquisitor." 

His stomach roiled, but he forced a smile. The shuffle of bodies and chairs as he stepped off the dais and everyone sat down again was deafening. 

As he reached the door to his tower, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

It came in the direction of the table the inner circle usually sat at, and was no doubt an attempt to get his attention. Sera would want him to sit with them, Bull would offer him a drink, Varric would forget how much he disliked him for an hour to pick up on gossip, and Dorian....

Trevelyan opened the door and entered the tower alone. 

The crows on the scaffolding stirred as he mounted the stairs. One landed on his shoulder, then another, then another. They pecked at his ear, teasing him, but he did not brush them off. He lowered the ward on his door and entered, walking up the stairs into his bedroom. With a wave of his hand, the fireplace roared into life, sending the crows flapping to the rafters.

He undressed before the mirror.

There was a long scar on his torso. The first night they made love, Dorian had traced it with a finger.

_“There's a nasty one,” he said. “Where did you get it?”_

_“I've fought a lot of Templars,” said Trevelyan._

_“I see….” Dorian’s finger moved to one on his thigh, his touch featherlight. “This one is similar.“_

_“Templar,” said Trevelyan._

_“And this one?” His fingers traced the deep scar that ran along Trevelyan’s shaved head, from his left eye to the back of his neck._

_Trevelyan stared up at the ceiling. "Templar.”_

_“Such a dull life you lead,” said Dorian. “You’d think you’d come up with a more creative way to get hurt.”_

Trevelyan ran a finger along his scalp. The skull underneath it was jagged, like a vase that had been put back together wrong.

Going to the balcony doors he threw them open and stepped into the icy wind. The crows cawed and flew outside, the wind lifting them like paper boats.

In a flash of light, he joined them.

It was unwise to fly around Skyhold at night, but he didn’t care. He followed the three crows as they sailed out into darkness, the cold wind cutting through his feathers and washing his lungs clean. The crows cawed to him, and he cawed back, his brain too small to worry about anything but the night air.

Eventually, his muscles tired, and he steered himself to the nearest rookery. He flapped inside and transformed beneath a row of crows, the birds barely stirring, and sat down naked in the damp straw.

It would be one day on a miserable rock, and then it would be over. The past would fade into memory where it belonged.

Until then, he thought, shivering, he was on his own.


	2. Chapter 2

Josephine accompanied Trevelyan to the yard the next morning. She rattled off the itinerary, along with a list of matters he would need to deal with upon his return. They were halfway down the stairs to the stables when Trevelyan stopped. Dorian was throwing a saddle over the back of the Bog Unicorn.

“Is there something the matter?” Josephine followed his gaze. “I assumed…”

He knew what she assumed. Everyone in the castle assumed correctly at this point. Trevelyan had figured there was a good chance Dorian would end up on his team, but hadn't been able to think of a way to dissuade Josephine from choosing certain companions without raising suspicion. If there was one thing a childhood in the Circle had taught him, it was that inconsistency drew attention.

"No, it’s quite all right,” said Trevelyan. “I was just surprised he chose the unicorn for the trip.”

“I tried to talk him out of it,” sighed Josephine. “But Lord Pavus is unusually fond of it.”

They continued down the steps. Trevelyan saw Cassandra checking the hooves of her Fereldan Forder. Of all the companions, Cassandra would be the easiest to keep in the dark. He counted himself lucky that Josephine hadn't picked someone perceptive like Iron Bull. 

“You ship is the _Dauntless_ ,” said Josephine. “She will carry you to the village of Seal Rock to the south of Ostwick, where a ferry will take you to the island. Leliana has made the necessary threats to ensure that your family does not interfere, and should they ignore those threats, our agents in their court will intervene.”

“Thank you, ambassador. Who else was assigned?" asked Trevelyan.

"I considered asking Solas, but he is still recovering from the wound he took in the Exalted Plains," said Josephine.

Trevelyan supposed he should be glad of that: the thought of the older mage traversing the Fade around Ostwick made him ill. 

"My next thought was Sera, but I did not think you would appreciate her.... _energy_ on this journey," said Josephine. "So I asked Cole."

Trevelyan scanned the yard until he found the spirit stroking the neck of his dracolisk. Cole's face was hidden by the wide brim of his hat.

"While I personally do not find him soothing, you have said in the past that you find his presence helpful," said Josephine. 

"I appreciate the thought," he said.

"Of course, Inquisitor. We are here to help you in any way we can." She hesitated. "I spoke to Cullen last night. We both realize your life in Ostwick Circle must have had....unpleasantries. You obviously wouldn't have run away otherwise. We regret that you must-"

"The rift is where it is. There is no need to apologize."

"Still, if you ever need to talk-" 

"It's fine, Josie," he said. "There is nothing to say." 

Josephine reached for him, then dropped her hand.

"Your Worship."

Trevelyan turned to find a squire leading his red hart across the lawn. The red hart's breath misted the morning air, her great forked hooves stamping the damp earth. Trevelyan took the reins and ran his fingers through her shaggy mane. 

"She's a little sluggish this morning," said the squire. "It took three of us to get her out of her stall." 

"She's sluggish every morning." Trevelyan gripped the reins under the hart's chin and dragged her head down. "Lazy thing."

"I packed the saddle bag like you said," said the squire. "There's extra gloves in there, too."

"Dismissed," said Trevelyan.

The squire saluted and scampered off. 

"I need to choose a staff from the armory," said Trevelyan. "Do you need me for anything?" 

"Nothing I cannot handle on my own," said Josephine. "I'll see you at the gate, Inquisitor." 

Josephine headed over to where the quartermaster was loading supplies into a cart. As soon as she was out of earshot, Trevelyan marched over to Cole, put a hand on his shoulder, and steered him behind a crumbling wall.

"Do you know why I'm here?" said Trevelyan. 

"No," said Cole. 

"You really can't hear anything?" asked Trevelyan. 

Cole's squinted as if against sunlight. His gaze shifted to somewhere over Trevelyan's shoulder, going distant. "You're afraid they'll find out what the Templars did to you." 

"Do you know what they did to me?" 

"I've always known," said Cole. 

Trevelyan wasn't prepared for that. Cole's mutterings had always seemed like a compulsion he couldn't control, his natural sympathy turning him into a tuning fork for other people's pain. That Cole could pick and choose which thoughts he blurted out had never occurred to him. "Then why have you never said anything?" 

"I did, but you didn't like what I said. I made you forget."

"When was this?" 

"Awhile ago. It's louder now than it was then." Cole bowed his head until his hat covered his face. "Buried, down in the dark, before a storm washed the soil away. It hurts you, but not in the way Seheron hurts Bull or the Temple of Sacred Ashes hurts Leliana. Theirs is sharp, easy to hear, because it happens over and over. Yours is...missing. There and not there. Like a hole that is itself and not anything." 

Trevelyan had no idea what he was talking about. "Cole. You're my friend, aren't you?" 

"Yes." 

"And friends don't hurt each other. Not on purpose." 

"No." 

"And I've done a great deal for you, haven't I?"

Cole lifted his chin.

"I've defended you from those who would cast you out, and I helped you deal with that Templar in Redcliffe. I'm now asking you to return the favor. Whatever you hear in my head, whatever you hear in Ostwick about what the Templars did, swallow it. No one needs to know. Understand?" 

"But, it hurts. It didn't before, when it was more nothing than something, but it's becoming more something than nothing."

"It doesn't matter," said Trevelyan.

"Dorian could help you. He'd want to-" 

"No. You know better than anyone what happens to mages who appear weak in this world. I can't afford it, not with him, not with anyone. This isn't something you can untangle. That tower was forgotten and that's how it's going to stay. Swear to me you won't speak of it." 

Cole's brow furrowed.

"Swear it," said Trevelyan.

"I...swear." 

Trevelyan studied him. He didn't think Cole was capable of lying, though he might twist the truth. "You haven't whispered anything around the others, have you?" 

"No." 

"Good." Trevelyan realized he had been digging his fingers into Cole's shoulder and released him. "I apologize if I hurt you." 

"You didn't," said Cole. 

"Still," said Trevelyan. "I'm sorry." 

Cole bowed his head. "They suspect."

Then he was gone, as if he had never been there. Trevelyan had a feeling that if anyone had overhead their conversation they would no longer be able to remember it.

* * *

The red hart was nibbling at the grass when he returned from the armory. Trevelyan slid a hand up her striped flank to rest on her neck. She lifted her head, flicked an ear, then went back to grazing. Trevelyan checked the cinches on her saddle and then opened the saddle bag. The squire had packed everything neatly as he said, down to the woolen gloves he would need when they sailed for the colder climes of Ostwick.

He was taking stock of his rations, when a hand touched his waist. 

"You ignored me at dinner last night," said Dorian. 

_Empty,_ Trevelyan told himself. _Emotions are the mind’s dysfunction. Fear pours out like water._

“I apologize,” said Trevelyan, not turning to face him. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

“No doubt,” said Dorian. “If you bothered to look in the mirror once in a while, you’d find there are bags under your eyes.”

Trevelyan said nothing. 

“I’m told we’re sailing to your old Circle,” said Dorian. “Do you think we could persuade that dwarf in Bull's company to lend us a few explosive charges? Just think, we could knock it down! A tidal wave would definitely send a strong message to your family, yes?”

“It’s a thousand-year-old tower built from dwarven-hewn stone,” said Trevelyan. “It would take several tons of explosive to put a dent in it.”

“Pity,” said Dorian. “I suppose we'll just have to find a way to desecrate it instead. An obscene mural on the wall perhaps?" 

Trevelyan continued to dig through his bag. 

“Jack,” said Dorian.

“What?” said Trevelyan.

“Look at me,” said Dorian.

Trevelyan turned his head. Dorian was as beautiful as ever. He was wearing the silver seasilk cloak Trevelyan had crafted for him, the one that brought out the gray of his eyes. 

"You're brooding," said Dorian. "More so than usual." 

"Am I?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Yes, and I don't blame you. _I'm_ not thrilled to be visiting a marcher city whose greatest cultural achievement is rolling wheels of cheese down sheep-ridden hillsides, so I can only imagine how you feel."

"We won't actually be visiting the city of Ostwick," said Trevelyan. "The ferry leaves from Seal Rock to the south."

"That's not what I meant." Dorian's expression softened. "Are you all right?" 

Trevelyan's stomach lurched. In any other context, he would be touched by Dorian's consideration for his feelings, but here and now the question scalded him. Trevelyan was in no danger of telling his advisors or companions the truth, but Dorian could persuade him in ways they could not. He forced himself to turn away. 

"I'm fine, Dorian," he said.

"No, you're not," said Dorian. "From what little you've said, this Circle tower was an unhappy place for you." 

"The Circle is an unhappy place for everyone," said Trevelyan. 

"I'm not talking about everyone."

Dorian leaned close until his lips were right under Trevelyan's ear.

"Tell me what's going on in that head of yours," he said. 

Trevelyan stood with his hands in the warm fur of his hart, staring down at his boots. It was so tempting to let Dorian in. The Tevinter had wormed his way past all of Trevelyan's defenses, wearing down the walls he had carefully built around himself. It seemed impossible that something as simple as a request could tug at the door of the most locked room inside him. 

But even as he felt his resolve weaken, anger crept in. 

Tell me what's going on. _Tell me what's going on._

What did Dorian expect? He must have known, on some level, that he was asking for something wretched. Did he think Trevelyan would describe every terrible violation that had been inflicted on him right here in the yard? While servants milled about? Or did he imagine he would get the summarized version? As if Trevelyan's problems were so puny as to fit in a single sentence.

 _They suspect._ Trevelyan knew exactly what they suspected. Trevelyan was an apostate with a chip on his shoulder who grew icy whenever anyone tried to dig up his past. His companions knew something had happened to him, even if they didn't dare say the words to his face. They suspected beatings, solitary confinement, rape. They suspected what their imagination allowed them to. They convinced themselves they wanted the truth, when really they despised his silence, and wanted a weapon to put the mage in his proper place whenever he got too uppity for their liking. 

They would think him pitiful if he told them about beatings. They would think even worse things if he told them what boredom did to a Templar's appetites, the few who would even believe him. 

And if he told them the truth, that a Templar had once cut him open like a rat, all his power went away. 

No one would believe him sane after that. Broken, damaged, unstable- they all would be used against him. What better way to undermine the man trying to take down the Circle than by revealing how badly he was mangled?

And Dorian. There was such a thing as too much baggage. Who would want to stay with a man whose head was such a mess? 

"Please don't read into it," said Trevelyan. "Just because we didn't fuck last night doesn't mean something's wrong." 

Dorian stepped back. Trevelyan didn't have to turn around to know he had wounded him. 

"Enjoy your sulk then," said Dorian,.

Trevelyan listened to his footfalls recede. The inside of his ribcage felt bruised. 

_Two weeks,_ he thought. _Two weeks at most and it will all be over._

* * *

The advisors lined up in their customary spot near the gate to see the Inquisitor and his entourage off. The trumpets shrieked in the morning dawn, steam rising from their bells. The red hart raised her nose and trumpeted, too. Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana all bowed to the Inquisitor as he rode behind his standard bearer out of Skyhold.

As they crossed the drawbridge, Trevelyan noticed strange shapes in the shadow of the gate tower. He turned in the saddle and saw the castle's crows lined up in a row on the crenels, watching him leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Went back and edited some of the exposition in the first chapter because it wasn't pulling its weight. These are scheduled to come out every Saturday, but if I get done editing them beforehand they might pop up sooner.


	3. Chapter 3

The _Dauntless_ cut through the gray waves, leaving spumes of foam in its wake. Trevelyan stood at the bow and let the cold wind wash over him.

The journey from Highever had been uneventful, if sullener than usual. They had sailed on the smooth waves of the Waking Sea for two days before entering the dark, cold waters of the Amaranthine. They were now curling around the coast, on their way to Ostwick.

The shore was rugged and lined with hardy trees bent by the wind, and the sky sunless and gray, as it so often was in this part of the world. It had been seventeen years since he had been this close to home. Strange, how the sight of the harsh coast made his chest ache. 

A sailor laughed. Trevelyan turned and saw Dorian stagger up the stairs from below deck. For the last two days, he had been bedridden in his cabin, unable to keep food down. He looked like death. 

“Are you sure you should be up?” asked Trevelyan. 

“I needed air,” murmured Dorian, coming to the rail. He redoubled his furs around himself. "How far out are we?" 

"A few hours from Seal Rock," said Trevelyan. "We'll stay at the inn there tonight. You'll be able to sleep in a bed that doesn't rock back and forth."

"Thank the Maker."

They stood in awkward silence. The tension between them was miserable, but Trevelyan couldn't see a way around it. He wanted to apologize for what he had said to Dorian at Skyhold, but the moment he did he knew Dorian would only start asking questions again, so he didn't, and the silence grew more stifling. 

"Is the weather always like this?" asked Dorian.

"More or less," said Trevelyan. 

"I suppose I should be glad it isn't raining. That's the only thing this country has over the Storm Coast."

"We lucked out on the season," said Trevelyan. "These waters are treacherous in fall and winter." 

"Even more treacherous than they are now?" asked Dorian. 

"This is fine sailing, believe it or not." 

Dorian shook his head. The ship rose and fell on the waves in a way that clearly did not agree with him.

"It's not all bad. There are parts of the coast that even you might like," said Trevelyan.

"Oh? Such as?"

Trevelyan considered. "To the north of Ostwick is a beach with black sand. The wind is brutal there, but the landscape is primeval in its beauty, and you can watch the white foam drag over the beach for hours."

"One of your boyhood haunts?" asked Dorian. 

Trevelyan hesitated. "Yes. My brothers and I used to ride our horses there."

"Black sand suits you," said Dorian. "Though, I wonder what would happen if you ever encountered a less dreary beach. It might inspire you to introduce color into your wardrobe."

"Never," said Trevelyan.

Dorian smiled wanly. "What else did you do as a boy?" 

Trevelyan's instinct was to evade the question, lest it open the door to less innocent inquiries into his past. But Dorian was on this ship because of him, and this was the most they had spoken since Skyhold. 

"Played along the shore, mostly. The surf is dangerous, but if you understand the tides you can climb the rocks without getting swept away. There are so many shipwrecks in this region that cargo sometimes washes up on shore, and as a boy it was fun to imagine some of those wrecks were pirate ships full of gold. Not that I needed it, but the idea of finding doubloons in the wrack will keep you occupied for hours when you're eight."

"Did you ever find anything?" asked Dorian. 

"A lot of dead seagulls," said Trevelyan. "Sometimes a shark would wash up, and that was always exciting. But my favorite was sea glass."

"Sea glass?"

"Broken glass that finds its way into the ocean and gets worn smooth. It's hard to find on these beaches, but you can if you search long enough. I'd spend hours collecting it, then take it home and put it in a wooden box I kept under my bed. Whenever I was sick or stuck inside, I'd take it out and arrange the shards by color. I always told myself I'd make them into something, but really I just liked having them." 

He hadn't thought of the sea glass in years. He could see it so clearly in his mind: his eight-year-old self kneeling on the rough floor, pulling the box out and wiping the dust off the lid. How many hours had he spent simply rubbing his fingers over little pieces of trash thrown up by the waves? 

"My favorite was this blue one that was dark as a sapphire. Prize of my collection." Trevelyan snorted. "I don't know what happened to that box. I suppose they threw it away when I went to..." 

He trailed off. The sailors were milling about, finishing their last duties before landfall.

"It would be nice if you were honest like this all the time," said Dorian. 

"I'm always honest with you," said Trevelyan.

"No, you're not," said Dorian.

The ache in Trevelyan's chest sharpened. "I'm sorry about what I said in the yard."

"Apology accepted. But I still wish you would talk to me." Dorian turned to head back below deck, then stopped, gazing starboard. "Is that it?" 

Trevelyan followed the line of his sight. There, on the horizon, was a dark spot. 

"Yes," he said. "That's it." 

* * *

As the _Dauntless_ steered toward Seal Rock, the village's namesakes made themselves known.

Trevelyan gazed down at the spotted seals playing in the wake of the ship. They raced each other, their scarred hides flashing white, brown, and black under the water. The closer they got to port, the more seals darted beneath them. Huge colonies lounged on jagged rocks, barking and blowing steam into the air. The smell of them washed over the ship deck and made more than one sailor wretch.

“Charming,” muttered Cassandra, tugging her scarf over her nose.

Seal Rock itself was a tiny fishing village nestled in a rocky cove. Fishing boats lined the docks. Houses made of pale driftwood climbed up the hill, and eventually gave way to peat houses dug into the grassy slope of the cliff behind the town. 

The _Dauntless_ was too large to dock in the port, so she dropped anchor in the shallows. The captain had Trevelyan and his companions rowed ashore, where sailors with weathered, grey faces watched them approach. A child in a dirty frock swung her feet over the side of the dock, then yanked her legs up and scurried away just as their dinghy bumped its side. 

"This'll be it," said the captain, a dwarven woman with a thick beard. The dozen Inquisition soldiers who had accompanied Trevelyan disembarked first and secured the dinghy, the others offloading supplies. "We'll wait for you tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after, but if you're not back by then, well.

"You'll be paid either way," said Cassandra, heaving the bundle with her armor onto the dock.

"Didn't mean it like that," said the captain. 

Trevelyan jumped onto the dock. He gave Dorian a hand out of the boat, the Tevinter all but scrambling to get away from the water. "We trust you will give our men safe passage back to Highever if we don't return."

"That was part of the deal." The captain turned to bark an order to the sailor at the oars, and startled. Cole was standing beside her, gripping the strap of his pack. 

" _Lungs raw, guts on fire, fever eating my mind like a map over a flame-_ -she's fading. She wishes you were there," he said. 

Dorian grabbed a fistful of Cole's shirt and yanked him onto the pier. "Nevermind him, he's touched in the head." 

"I didn't realize you had another companion. How did..." She shook her head. "Sod magic. AWAY!" 

The soldiers untied the dinghy and shoved it off. The little boat began to row back to the _Dauntless_ , where the crew was tying up the sails. 

"I think we made a splendid impression on her," said Dorian. 

Cassandra sighed. "We should find the mayor."

That turned out to be more difficult than expected. There was no one to meet them, so the Inquisition soldiers split up to try to find the mayor or his kin. Trevelyan, Cole, Dorian, and Cassandra waited for them, seated on their gear in the cold. 

Eventually, an elven soldier returned. "He's not at his house, Your Worship. We're still searching for him, but so far nothing." 

"No matter," said Trevelyan, rising. "I needed to stretch my legs anyway. Maybe we'll have better luck."

They walked along the docks, where sailors mending nets ignored them, and women chopping the heads off fish tightened their grips on their knives. No one spoke to them, but mothers pulled their children inside, and more than a few warded against the evil eye. 

They stopped in the mud of the main street where the village market was located. A cloud of flies hung over a butcher's shop, where seal carcasses were hung to dry on racks. At the end of the street was a white Chantry with a blood red door. A dog wagged its tail at them, sniffed at Cole's boot, then growled and slinked off.

"This is ridiculous," said Cassandra. "Excuse me." 

An old woman carrying a bucket of water stopped. 

"We seek the mayor," said Cassandra. "We disembarked and he was not there to meet us." 

The old woman jabbed a jagged fingernail at the butcher shop, then toddled off. 

"Not much for hospitality, are they?" said Dorian.

"They're peasants, and we're a band of armed soldiers passing through their town," said Trevelyan. "They're afraid of us." 

"Not to mention we have two mages in our party. That's enough to frighten even those who live near a Circle tower," said Cassandra. 

"Thanks for that," said Dorian.

"I simply _meant_ that the Inquisition does not have the reputation here that it does in Orlais and Fereldan," said Cassandra. "These people have likely never seen dwarves, elves, and mages all together at once before. Nevermind that we are a foreign organization that bears little import on their lives." 

They went in the direction the old woman had pointed, down an alley beside the butcher shop, their boots splashing in mud thick with offal and blood. There was a pig pen, where spotted hogs were nosing at a trough. A man lay snoring against the fence, a wine bottle clutched to his chest. 

Trevelyan kicked him in the ribs. 

"Wah?" The man struggled out of sleep. He dragged his head up, eyes fat with bruises. "Who's there?" 

"My name is Trevelyan. Are you the mayor?" 

The man scratched his whiskers. "Who's asking?" 

"The Inquisitor," said Cassandra, loud enough that the man winced. "You speak to the Herald of Andraste. Show some respect." 

The man lurched up, tugging at his trousers. "Oh, aye. The one they says was coming." He took in their weapons and armor. "You're Trevelyan of _the_ Trevelyans?" 

"My mother is the teyrn," said Trevelyan. 

The effect was interesting. The man, for whom the title of Inquisitor meant little, paled. "Forgive me, your lordship. I uh-" He stood the bottle on the fence and smoothed his tunic. "The misses must have put something in my drink. She's a wicked woman, always pulling tricks on me." He wiped his hands on his trousers and beckoned them to follow. "You'll be wanting a bed. My name is Blasaad, and I'm the mayor of Seal Rock. I'll see you to the inn, where you can stow your swords and whatnot." 

"Is it crawling with as many fleas as you are?" murmured Dorian. 

They followed the mayor up a narrow street, which led to a zigzag path up the steep hillside. The inn sat above the rest of the town on a ledge overlooking the sea, its blown glass windows dark at noon. The sign that hung above its door read, "The Lucky Sailor," and showed a man stabbing at a shark he had caught in his net. The mayor banged on the door until a freckled woman with red hair answered it. They conferred in whispers, until the woman swung open the door and the mayor waved them in. 

"It's nice and dry," said the mayor, twisting his wedding band on his finger as Trevelyan slowly stalked around the dusty common room. "Nine rooms downstairs, four upstairs, you have your pick."

"We came with a contingent of soldiers," said Cassandra.

"Well, I suppose some of you will have to double up," said the mayor. 

Trevelyan picked a dead mouse off a table by its tail and dropped it on the floor. 

"Or I could turn someone out," said the mayor. "Plenty of folks would be happy to give up a bed for your men." 

"That won't be necessary," said Trevelyan.

"Yes, he and I will be sharing a room," said Dorian, knocking the mud off his boot against the cold fireplace. "Preferably the one with the sturdiest bed. That should make room for everyone, yes?" 

The mayor's expression darkened, but he wisely said nothing. Despite Dorian's joking tone, Trevelyan felt a slight unease. It made sense for them to share a room, but it also meant an opportunity for Dorian to question him in private. Their hurt stalemate had been useful in keeping Dorian's concern at bay, in addition to the fact that they hadn't slept under the same roof since Skyhold. 

The red-haired woman returned with blankets and went upstairs, threads of dust showering down on them as she went down the hall to each room. 

"The ferryman," said Cassandra. "Will he meet us here tomorrow?" 

"Who?" asked the mayor.

"The man who is to take us to the tower," said Cassandra, loud enough that the man reached to cover his ears. 

"Ah, yes, I'll make sure he's here bright and early. Hard to believe anyone's going back to that place. No one's asked for passage to it for years, what with the robes gone," said the mayor.

"The last people who went were the Seekers, correct?" asked Cassandra. 

Trevelyan went very still. Cassandra and he had spoken very little on the voyage. Trevelyan had always assumed that Cassandra, given her trusting nature, had been kept in the dark by her fellow Seekers about the true nature of Ostwick Circle. She was too honest a person to keep such a thing hidden, but Trevelyan wondered. The Chantry's official story had always been that the Seekers had gone to the island and found everyone killed in a mage uprising. Did she know more than that? 

"Yes," said the mayor. "Couple dozen of them came, armed to the teeth. They were on the island for days before they came back. Didn't say nothing about what they did, just that the mages were all dead. Templars too, Maker rest their souls."

"It was a tragedy that didn't need to happen," said Cassandra. "In any case, we will hopefully only be on the island for a day. If we have injuries, we may need to stay additional nights here." 

"Course," said the mayor. "Stay as long as you like. The son of the teyrn is welcome here." For the first time, the mayor's drunken haze cleared enough that he focused on the staff on Trevelyan's back. "Though I don't recall her having a robe son." 

"Are you calling the Inquisitor a liar?" said Cassandra. 

"No, I meant no offense, milord." 

"It's all right, Cassandra," said Trevelyan, staring out the window. "My family has many black sheep. I just happen to be the blackest." 

"I see." The mayor hesitated. "Is there....anything else you require, milord?" 

"My soldiers will be searching for you in the town. Find them, apologize to them, and direct them here," said Trevelyan.

"Find them? How many are there?"

"You are dismissed," said Trevelyan.

The mayor glowered, for a moment rebellious, then made a sloppy bow and ducked out, heading back down the hillside to the village. Upstairs, the straw broom of the innkeeper raked across the floorboards. 

"We should rest as much as possible," said Cassandra, dropping her armor to the floor. "I think I will read until dinner. Where is Cole?" 

All three of them looked around. The spirit was nowhere to be seen. Trevelyan struggled to remember if he had followed them up the hill. 

"No doubt he'll turn up," said Trevelyan. 

"Hopefully, he does not cause trouble," said Cassandra. "I know he means well, but his whisperings are disturbing to those who aren't used to them. You're lucky he can't read you the way he does us." 

Trevelyan grimaced. In the reflection of the window, Dorian headed for the door. "Where are you going?" 

"To get my blood moving," said Dorian. "Maybe a walk on the beach. Are seals dangerous?"

"Only if you provoke them," said Trevelyan. "Just....remember where you are. These people despise magic almost as much as they fear it." 

"How could I forget?" Dorian waved behind him as he sauntered back down the hillside, taking a path away from the town to a pebbly beach. Trevelyan watched him go, then slowly returned his attention to the black smudge in the center of the window, right where a bubble was caught in the glass. It was like a stain, and he rubbed it with his finger. The Black Tower remained where it was on the horizon, unmoved. 

* * *

The soldiers eventually found their way to the inn and took a cold lunch of barley and onion stew. Trevelyan left them with instructions to remain vigilant but not bother the locals, then shut the door to his room and curled up on the bed. 

He woke with a start to find the shadows long across the floor. There was a tiny window above the bed with a view of the beach, and Trevelyan leaned up to check how much daylight was left.

He was surprised to see Dorian's small but recognizable figure some ways out, walking along the wrack. He wondered if he had returned to the inn and gone back out again, either from boredom or to allow Trevelyan his rest. Tugging on his boots, he went down the creaking stairs to the common room, where the smell of fish and vegetables was steaming up the windows.

The innkeeper served Cassandra and Trevelyan dinner first at their table, sliding flaky lamprey pies onto their plates and filling their bowls with carrot and fish head stew. The ale she poured into their flagons was frothy and too sweet for Trevelyan's taste, but he sipped it anyway, letting the warmth seep into his bones. The soldiers were served next at their smaller tables, moved far enough away to allow the Inquisitor his privacy.

"Should we wait for Dorian?" asked Cassandra. 

Trevelyan broke open the crust on his lamprey pie. "He probably had something earlier." 

"I don't think so," said Cassandra. "He's been out there on the beach since we arrived." 

"Truly?" That was odd. " He was ill for so long, I thought he'd be eager to get out of the cold." 

"Some men are made more restless by sea travel than others. Perhaps exercise is the best medicine for his spirits." Cassandra raised her spoon, curled her nose at the fish head staring back at her, then lowered it. "Are you two still arguing?" 

"I don't believe that's any of your business," said Trevelyan. 

"Perhaps not, but since I've had to endure you two sulking around each other since Skyhold, I beg to differ," she said. "Whatever your disagreement, he clearly adores you. It would be a waste to squander your relationship in the midst of so much grief." 

"I didn't ask for your advice." 

She clenched her jaw, but said no more. 

As the light in the common room darkened from orange to blood red, the soldiers either went on patrol or turned in for the night. There was no doubt in Trevelyan's mind that some were headed behind the inn to dice and play cards, but he didn't care. Some transgressions were not worth punishing. When the common room was empty save for Trevelyan and Cassandra, the innkeeper brought out her specialty: a slab of spiced seal meat. 

"I've never had seal before," said Cassandra, cutting into the blubbery flesh. 

Trevelyan had. He cut off a piece, placed it on his tongue, and closed his eyes.

“Good?” asked Cassandra.

It was. Fatty, rich, salted, the way he remembered. “Mm.”

“I'm surprised you still have a taste for it. Eating it all the time in the Circle must have gotten tiresome." 

And just like that, the taste soured. “The mages didn't eat seal.”

“No?” Cassandra frowned. “It seems a common enough dish here.”

Salted seal meat had been provided to the Templars by the barrelful thanks to the Seekers. The mages were given no such provisions. Their diet, when the Templars remembered to feed them, had usually been whatever they managed to catch in their traps. That included the rats that crawled all over the island. The same rats that feasted on the dead bodies of those who died under the knife were then caught, tossed in a pot, and served back to the mages.

“Maybe they thought it was too good for us,” said Trevelyan. 

Cassandra studied him. “Cullen and I spoke before we left Skyhold. We both noticed you have been quieter than usual.”

“Is that a compliment?” he said, venom settling easily on his tongue. Smalltalk and pleasantries did not come naturally from him with Cassandra Pentaghast. Mutual dislike was easier.

“No,” she said. “A simple observation.”

“Something to put in your report?” asked Trevelyan. _“The apostate is too quiet. Must be blood magic. The apostate is too chatty. Must be hiding blood magic.”_

She sighed. “I simply wished to ask how you are doing, given where we are going.”

Trevelyan kept his expression neutral. "Oh?" 

“Yes,” said Cassandra. “When I was a Seeker, I was responsible for reviewing reports of Templar abuses. So many terrible things happened right under my nose, and I never lifted a finger to stop them. I didn't ask the questions I should have. It is possible that my negligence directly contributed to....whatever happened to you." 

He had never heard her speak so gently before. They had despised each other since she threatened to feed him to the mob in Haven for Justinia's death. Gradually, hatred had mellowed into grudging tolerance, sometimes even good humor, if they were in the right mood. But she had never taken responsibility like this before. It was an olive branch. She wanted him to open up to her. 

What a joke. 

He was sorely tempted to lay out everything. Every crime, every sordid moment, every horror. Let her try to cling to her illusion of the Chantry then. Let her defend the Templars after hearing what they’d done.

But none of it would matter. She might feel shame, but she wouldn't change. The suffering of mages had never counted as proof to people like Cassandra. She would merely mutter platitudes about bad apples and reform, say she was sorry, and think no more of it. The only detail she would take away was that the Inquisitor was, at the very least, a model candidate for Tranquility. She might even think the experiments that had been done to his body were valuable to the Chantry, and like a stooge, pass the knowledge along. She would watch him closer than ever, assured that his mind was weak, that any moment he would snap and prove her right: that he belonged in a cage.

 _Empty_ , he told himself. _You are nothing and no one. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. They are dirty water. Pour them out until there is nothing inside you._

"How about this," he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. "Instead of you, Cullen, and Josephine trying to crack me open like a clam, why don't I pick your brain for once. I can't help but notice that you seem to think my history is owed to you in a way yours isn't to me, Seeker." 

Her face darkened. "I am willing to answer whatever questions you have, Inquisitor." 

"Then tell me what your reports said about the Black Tower," he said. 

He could see the scales balancing in her mind, no doubt weighing her loyalty to him against her loyalty to her fallen order. She set her fork down. "I don't know. Every report that came from Ostwick was handed to my superiors instead of me."

"Was that normal?" 

"Yes and no. We often divided the Circles between us, and if one Seeker had a better understanding of the internal conflicts of a specific Circle, he or she might be responsible for overseeing its cases every time. The Lord-Seeker considered Ostwick Circle to be a problem Circle, in nearly every sense of the word, and made a point to review every report from it personally." 

"Why did he consider it a problem?"

"The Black Tower is old and isolated. Given its decline, the cost of maintaining it outweighed the benefits. Many of us argued that it would be better to abandon it and relocate its mages to other Circles, but those arguments were ignored. The Lord-Seeker insisted that it be kept running, no matter how understaffed and undersupplied its garrison." She paused. "Was the tower in disrepair?" 

"Yes," said Trevelyan. "Most of the it was derelict." 

"That was as I feared. Travel to the island has always been difficult, and given the lack of communication that goes along with that, we assumed it was in worse shape than our superiors were willing to admit."

It was strange to hear the story from the other side, the truth mingled with falsehood. Cassandra sensed something had gone wrong with the tower, but lacked the imagination to guess why her superiors might want to keep a remote building whose operations were easily hidden. 

"Why was the tower kept running then?" he asked.

"Lethargy. Pride. An unwillingness to lose one of the original Circle towers. There were times where I think even the Lord-Seeker wanted to be done with it, but Knight-Commander du Lac always discouraged him," said Cassandra. 

The hair stood up on Trevelyan's neck. "Did you know him?"

"I met him once, a few years before the rebellion," said Cassandra. "A compassionate man, despite the difficulties of his post." 

Trevelyan's hand curled into a fist on the table.

"Did you know the Knight-Commander well?" asked Cassandra.

"We bumped into each other a few times," said Trevelyan. "What did he do to discourage the tower's abandonment?" 

"It was well before my time, but my understanding is that he was the one who first proposed that the Black Tower was an ideal place to send mages who were slated for Tranquility or execution in other Circles."

That was news to Trevelyan. "What year would that have been?"

"The late Blessed Age, I believe. Du Lac cared deeply for mages who were considered lost causes: maleficar, deviants, those with an inclination for criminal behavior. Rather than dispose of them, he wanted to give them a home where they could be observed. He must have been persuasive, because the Lord Seeker often made the Black Tower the destination for those who otherwise would have suffered terrible fates. The tower remained open because of it." 

"And so for thirty years or so they only sent mages there who fit his criteria?" asked Trevelyan.

"Yes," she said. "They only ever selected a few dozen over the decades, but the intention was pure. Better to put dangerous mages somewhere where they could live out their lives, in a place where escape was impossible. At least, we _believed_ escape was impossible. You are proof otherwise." 

"Obviously." 

She shook her head sadly. "Du Lac wanted Ostwick to be an alternative to the Aeonar. A place where those the Chantry had given up on could be shown mercy, and also where Templars could learn how to better subvert blood magic and prevent possession. Perhaps it was always fated to end in blood, but we should have done more to salvage it. What was it like there?"

"It was a Circle," he said.

Frustration twitched across her face, then was quickly replaced by sorrow. "No doubt the tower was a grim place. I understand why you dislike speaking of it. To be surrounded by exhausted Templars and violent mages...." 

Trevelyan dug his thumbnail into his palm. He had been vaguely aware that the Black Tower's reputation in the outside world was as a prison of some kind, but only as the ghost of a rumor. It never occurred to him that the rumor had originated from the Seekers, and that some of them would have accepted it unquestionably as fact.

There had also never been, to Trevelyan's knowledge, a profound reason as to why he ended up in the Black Tower. Most mages in the region were sent to neighboring Circles instead. Why the Templars had chosen him over countless other children no doubt came down to convenient factors, the most important of which was that his family had disowned him and would not care if he disappeared. Cassandra had clearly decided on a different reason.

"Do you know why I was sent there?" he asked. 

"I admit, I do not have access to your records. I cannot tell you why the Templars chose you for the Black Tower at such a young age. But I assume it was because you were..."

"A good candidate?"

"In some sense." she said.

"Is that assumption based on something you want to tell me?" he asked. 

"Do you wish me to speak plainly?" asked Cassandra.

"Yes," he said. 

"You are focused, intelligent, and a good leader. We all admire you. But...when I gaze into your eyes, it's like there is nothing behind them. You frighten me. You frighten us all. Perhaps it is because you are an apostate, or because of the heresy you so often speak, but it also because there's something inside you that is...missing." 

_Empty,_ he told himself _. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Fear is dirty water. Pour it out._

"Thank you for your frankness," he said. 

"I hope I did not offend you. Did the Templars ever tell you why you were judged fit for Ostwick?"

"None," he said. "But my life there was disorganized. Does anyone else in the Inquisition know everything you just told me?" 

"No," she said. "It was Seeker business. And I have never brought up the Black Tower's history to anyone out of respect for you."

That was a relief. "Thank you for that."

"No doubt you're tired of hearing this, but we are here for you. No matter the Circle's reputation, you have proven yourself better than the mages who were sent there. I can only offer my apologies for putting you in a position where you have to return to the tower, both as a Seeker, and as the woman who made you Inquisitor. Should you wish to speak about it further-"

"I don't." 

"Then I apologize again." She folded her napkin and put it on her plate. "Sleep well.”

She left him there. Trevelyan stared down at the bloody seal meat on his plate. The wind whistling through the slats of the tavern was a ghostly wail. It was full dark out, and a yellow moon hung in the sky. 

Tugging his collar up around his ears, he pushed back from the table and headed for the door. He had just grabbed the handle when it swung outward.

"Ah." Dorian grinned. His cheeks were flush with cold and he smelled of salt. "There you are. I have something for you-"

Trevelyan pushed past him. "Later," he said, and was gone.

* * *

The sea was like a pan of beaten silver. Swift-moving clouds skudded across the sky.

He followed the path down to the beach, then found that it split: the right continuing to the sea, the left heading up a hill. He took the left. The village grew smaller behind him. Seabirds lifted their heads from their nests in the dense grass of the slope. At the top, he stopped and wrapped his arms around himself.

There, like a smudge of smoke on the horizon, was the Black Tower.

Most of what Cassandra had told him had been, not a revelation, but a clarification. She had been spoon-fed a lie. She believed Ostwick in its final years had been the Chantry's dumping ground for delinquents. In reality it had been a black site for mages no one would miss: those that could be cut open again and again until their hearts gave out or they slit their wrists. He supposed it was possible it had started with good intentions, but even if it had, that beneficence had dried up quickly.

The one consolation was that Cassandra had kept her Chantry propaganda to herself. With his position as mage Inquisitor always precarious, the idea of her whispering to their friends that he had spent his childhood in a prison for violent mages was nearly as bad as if she told them the truth.

All at once, he was struck by the desire to leave. He could leave. He was the Inquisitor. Change his mind, get back on the ship, command it to return to Highever. He could tell any lie he wanted. If demons surged out of the sea and killed every man, woman, and child in Ostwick, he would not shed a tear for them.

Let that be the price of their comfort, he thought. Let them bleed like we bled. Let them all die and the crabs eat their eyes. Let thousands rot for all the mages who were cut open like animals for their precious peace of mind.

“You’re angry.”

Trevelyan startled. Cole was sitting on the hillside, cradling a broken egg in his hands.

“Do you get a thrill out of doing that?” snapped Trevelyan.

“No,” said Cole. He touched the pieces of shell in his palm.

"What are you doing?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Listening." He turned his ear to the shell. "She wanted to fly, but her wings were too small. She fell in the sea instead. The waves pulled her under. She didn't know about death until it happened." He lay the shell pieces gently back in the empty nest. "I would have saved her."

The spirit turned his pale eyes on Trevelyan.

"You're thinking about the tower," he said. 

"Yes," said Trevelyan. 

"About how the Templars hurt you," said Cole. 

"Yes."

“They hurt Cole, too."

Trevelyan was familiar with the story. He had accompanied Cole to Redcliffe some weeks ago with Solas and Varric, where they learned about his past. Cole was not the real Cole, but a reflection of him. A mirror of pain.

The incident with the Templar had changed him somehow. He was more solid, less disconcerting, but still kind. True to his word, he had not let slip one detail of Trevelyan's past, focusing his attention instead on sewing a tear in Cassandra's shirt while she slept, or bringing the hot water to boil for Dorian's morning tea. It was easy to forget that the ghost boy's face was not his own, and his memories were a facsimile of a dead man.

"Cole was afraid all the time," said Cole. "A door would slam, and his heart would bruise his ribcage. He had nightmares. His father killed his mother, and it tainted everything. The flowers in the garden became her blood, the scratch of a branch on the roof were her nails on the floorboards. His fear was a bell that could not stop ringing."

"I'm sorry."

"He was angry and sad all the time. Like you. But you don't show it. You don’t feel it, either.”

"I lost most of my emotions when I was inside the Circle,” said Trevelyan.

It was something that had happened to a lot of mages there. It was as if his mind had figured out that the best way to stay alive was not to feel. After the Circle, he had waited years to be himself again, and it simply never happened. Something was blocked inside him, or maybe carved out entirely. All that was left was a residue of degradation that never went away. 

Cole's head was so low that it nearly touched his knee.

" _Empty,"_ whispered Cole.

"What?" asked Trevelyan.

" _Empty. Empty. Empty_ ," repeated Cole. "Where did those words come from?" 

Trevelyan didn't have an answer. The spirit's lips trembled as if he was fighting against his own voice. Then he vanished. Trevelyan was left in the cold night air, alone again. 


	4. Chapter 4

The Templars were chasing him.

He was nine years old, twelve, sixteen. They grabbed at his clothes. His hands flew up a ladder to a trapdoor and shoved it open, the door banging on the stone floor. The crows cawed as he climbed into the rookery. Their wings beat against his face as he scrambled into a window, the rough stone skinning his knees. Wind lashed him. Waves broke in spiderwebs of white foam on the rocks far, far below.

Shouts and armored boots echoed up the staircase behind him. But they were too late. Black feathers burst from his arms and shoulders, and he leapt.

Only for his wings to melt like wax.

He fell like a stone, down through air, down through rock, until he was buried beneath the earth. The weight of the tower on top of him pressed the air from his lungs.

There were bones all around him.

 _You were the one who got away,_ they said. 

Yes, he said. 

_You left us behind._

I'm sorry, he said. 

_Why did you come back?_

The bones pressed against his skull, until he realized he wasn't underground at all, but strapped to a table, his head suspended in a cradle of metal screws, with a wooden bar between his teeth. 

* * *

Trevelyan woke with a gasp. 

He vaulted out of bed. In two strides he was at the door, checking the wards. Secure. His bare feet thudded on the floorboards as he ran around to the wardrobe and threw it open. Secure.

Dorian sat up in bed, startled. Trevelyan got down on his knees and checked under the bed. Secure. He waved a hand at the ward on the tiny window. Secure. He stood in the middle of the room, panting. 

"-what is it?" Dorian asked.

 _"Hush."_

They listened. The only sound was the sigh of the sea.

"There's no one," said Dorian. 

Trevelyan heard him and did not hear him. Dorian rose and pulled Trevelyan into his arms. 

"My poor man," he said. 

Trevelyan dragged away his attention from the pounding in his ears. They were in their bedroom in The Lucky Sailor. It was late spring, and they were in Seal Rock to take a ferry to the Black Tower. They were going there to close the rift. His name was Jack, and he was thirty-three, not nine, or twelve, or sixteen. He was the Inquisitor and the Templars who hurt him were long dead.

The fire in his blood began to recede. He was naked, covered in sweat, and the big toe of his left foot throbbed, though he couldn't remember stubbing it on anything.

"There, now." Dorian tightened his embrace. "That must have been a bad one."

"Sorry," said Trevelyan. 

"Don't be. It gives me an excuse to hold you. So much nicer than holding a grudge." 

It was the first time they had touched since Skyhold. Trevelyan tried to relax, but couldn't. 

"You got in late last night," said Dorian. 

"I wasn't tired," said Trevelyan. In truth, he had been too agitated after his conversations with Cassandra and Cole to do anything but wander the beach. He had returned to the inn to find Dorian snoring. "I didn't think I woke you."

"You didn't," said Dorian. "Shame. I had a marvelous plan to wipe that scowl off your face, seeing as you've committed to wearing it every day." He nuzzled him. "I missed you." 

Trevelyan felt him harden against his thigh. In another life, the one that existed a week ago before he found out about the rift, he would have responded hungrily. He would have pushed Dorian onto the bed, wrapped his limbs around him, and made love to him until every foul memory was banished. 

But the dream was like ice in his veins.

"Maybe some other time," said Trevelyan, pulling away. 

Without meeting his eyes, Trevelyan went to the chair where he had folded his clothes the night before. From the absolute stillness behind him, it was a mistake. 

"That's it." Dorian knocked the clothes out of his hands. "We need to talk." 

"What about?" said Trevelyan. 

"What about?" said Dorian, incredulous. "Everyone has been tip-toeing around you, bound by some unspoken madness to not mention the druffalo in the room. Well, I'm tired of pretending to be blind and stupid. We all know something happened to you at Ostwick. Whatever it is has been eating away at you like a cancer, and the worst part is that we've enabled it with silence. That's what I mean when I say we need to talk." 

"Fine," said Trevelyan. "This is me talking. Happy?" 

"No," said Dorian. "Not until you tell me what's put you in this mood."

Trevelyan reached for his tunic, only for Dorian to block him. 

"I'm not asking for gory details," said Dorian.

"Then what are you asking for?" asked Trevelyan.

"Anything! A sentence, a word. Would it be that hard to say, 'I'm depressed because this wretched coast brings back bad memories'? Am I not worth that many syllables? You treat me like a tiger that's waiting to pounce on you, when all I want, all any of us want, is to be shown an ounce of trust."

Dorian waited, and waited, and still Trevelyan held his tongue. 

"Truly?" said Dorian. "What do you think will happen? That I'll recoil in horror to find that under that mask of yours is a man who bleeds? Don't insult me. You can fool your minions, but you can't fool me. I know you, and I'm not some babe in the woods. Nothing you could say would shock me." 

Trevelyan scoffed. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really," snapped Dorian.

"And what do you know about the 'shocking' things that go on in our Circles, Dorian Pavus?" asked Trevelyan. "Other than you'd rather be caught dead than put on one of the robes they made us wear."

"From you, next to nothing. But from the rebel mages in your employ?"

Trevelyan stiffened at that.

"Oh yes, they gossip like fishwives. They can hardly go a sentence without bringing up what the Templars did to them. And every time they reveal some fresh horror, every time, I imagine it happening to you. Don't think I haven't considered a thousand reasons why you wake up screaming at night."

Trevelyan had not been prepared for that. Dorian had always treated the plight of southern mages as quaint. He had never given any indication that the crimes of the Circle were worth anything more than a headshake to him--simply one more reason to consider the south a backwater. The few times he had asked after Trevelyan's years in the Circle, he had always let Trevelyan steer the conversation into safer waters, helping him evade the questions with suggestive jokes. The blank slate that was Trevelyan's past had seemed to be a mutually agreed-upon convenience that kept them both happy. It had never occurred to him that his silence had allowed Dorian's imagination to fester. 

_Empty_.

Trevelyan turned away. "I don't want to talk about it, Dorian." 

"Well, you're going to," said Dorian. "Because this self-flagellation is getting old." 

"No," said Trevelyan.

Dorian tried to turn him around, digging his nails into his shoulder. 

"Do you think I would judge you?" His voice wavered. "That I would ever shame you for what they did to you?"

Trevelyan tensed as if against a blow. It felt like there was a fist around his throat. 

"I can't bear this silence," said Dorian. "I just.....Please. Don't shut me out." 

It felt as if Trevelyan was standing in two places at once. Their warm quarters in Skyhold where they were happy, and this cold room beside the grey sea. Against all odds, they had found each other. Halward Pavus had dragged Dorian's deepest pain into the light, and Trevelyan had cradled it like a bird. Dorian adored him for it, maybe even loved him, and wanted love in return. And yet every time he reached for Trevelyan's heart, Trevelyan flinched away.

There was something broken inside him. He didn't know how to let Dorian in. Every instinct screamed that it was a mistake, that weakness would be repaid with pain. There had never been a single moment in Trevelyan's life where vulnerability wasn't punished, so why would the opposite be true now? 

Even if he told Dorian everything in a rush--the way the Templars had gutted his spirit, the way he didn't even feel human most days...the memory of himself strapped to a table with the wooden bar between his teeth, naked, soaked in piss, reduced to a screaming piece of meat, was so disgusting, so hideous, that he couldn't bear to bring it to light. 

The wounded animal inside him bared its teeth. 

"Amatus-" said Dorian. 

Trevelyan shoved him. 

Dorian hit the wardrobe. It rocked back on its wooden legs, banging against the wall. Dorian grabbed at it to catch himself, missed, and fell. He sat on the floor, staring at Trevelyan in disbelief. 

Then, without a word, he got up and began to gather his clothes. 

Trevelyan had gone cold. "I didn't mean to do that." 

Dorian didn't answer. 

"I didn't mean-" 

"Do you know what it's like to be with a man who refuses to talk about himself?" asked Dorian on the edge of the bed, tugging on his breeches. 

Trevelyan didn't answer.

"It's like waiting outside a wall, and every now and then, for a brief moment, a window opens, then slams closed. It keeps you hooked. You tell yourself, this time, this time, he's going to let me in." 

He gathered his staff and cloak, glancing around the room to make sure he hadn't missed anything. 

"This isn't working," said Dorian. 

Trevelyan's mouth went dry. His mind blanked, unable to find a single word. 

"I'll tell Cassandra you need a few minutes," said Dorian. 

Without looking back, he opened the door and shut it behind him. 

Trevelyan sat down on the bed. The indentations of their sleeping bodies were still in the sheets from where they had slept back to back.

He searched his emotions, and as usual, found them muted. In their place was a violent nausea that dragged his head into his hands. The buzzing in his blood spiraled higher and higher, until it felt as if his skull would burst. And under it all was the certainty that he had just ruined the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

_Empty_ , he told himself. _You are nothing and no one. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Pour them out like dirty water. You are a will inside a body. You are a thing inside a disgusting body._

"You are nothing," he whispered, alone in the bedroom, "and no one." 

* * *

The ferry that took them to the island was the same one that took Trevelyan there twenty-two years ago. The ferryman was the same as well—a grizzled sailor with a mane of gray hair and one cloudy eye. If he recognized Trevelyan, he didn't say so.

The sea was rough, as it always was around the Black Tower. The little boat leaped off the waves, tipping sometimes so hard that it seemed impossible it did not capsize. Trevelyan and his companions sat in the tiny cabin. Dorian hunched over with his head between his knees, while Cassandra was faintly green. 

Cole did not seem to mind. “The ocean is full of secrets,” he said.

“Shut. Up,” said Dorian.

The boat plowed through a grey wave, water surging down the deck and into the cabin. Ice water soaked their boots. 

"Is it always this dreadful?" asked Cassandra, screwing her eyes shut as they tipped sideways.

"It would defeat the purpose of an inescapable island if it wasn't," said Trevelyan. 

"If this is how it is in spring, getting supplies to the island in fall and winter must have been-" Cassandra groaned. "Impossible." 

Trevelyan said nothing to that. Water slapped around their feet again, this time sluicing up the bench and drenching their buttocks. The ferry never came to the island in the dark months, making the mages and the Templars in the tower even more stir-crazy. Day after day of dwindling supplies, coupled with anger and boredom, meant unspeakable things happened more often. 

The black dot on the horizon grew in size. 

"How much longer?" asked Cassandra. 

Trevelyan wasn't sure. The ferry ride had seemed an eternity as a boy, and the ferryman, when asked that morning, had merely grunted. "If you want to put your head down, I'll tap your shoulder when we get there." 

Cassandra gave a bitter laugh. "I doubt it would help." 

"Speak for yourself," murmured Dorian, still with his head between his knees. 

The normalcy of their banter felt unreal, as if the argument that morning had never happened. Trevelyan had come down into the common room to find Dorian telling Cassandra a joke, gesturing animatedly with one hand, while the other hand stole bacon off her plate. Cole had lurked near the Inquisition soldiers, whispering in their ears, and to Trevelyan's relief, made not one peep about the pain stabbing in Trevelyan's breast. True to his word, he minded his own business. 

They had eaten breakfast together. Dorian chatted politely, despite making a point to inch away from him when Trevelyan sat down on the bench. The plan, it seemed, was to pretend nothing was wrong. They would remain battle companions, the rest unresolved. Trevelyan left instructions with the soldiers to wait for them, then set out to find the ferryman. As they had boarded the boat, he realized how badly he wanted Dorian to tell him everything was going to be okay. The man was right there, but he might as well have been miles away.

And always would be now, because Trevelyan didn't have a soul to give him. 

Trevelyan turned to the window. The dot had become a smudge, and grew larger with every minute. A low feeling of dread gripped his guts.

The ferryman banged on the cabin wall. "We'll come around its southern edge to the east side. Pier's there."

Trevelyan nodded. The island the tower sat on began to take on detail. Jagged cliffs rose out of the sea, slate waves crashing against them again and again, hurling spray high into the air. And the tower itself at its highest point-

They sailed into its shadow. 

The darkness fell on them like a physical weight. The temperature plummeted below freezing, their drenched clothes causing them to shiver. Cassandra squinted open an eye, and her mouth dropped. She pressed her brow against the tiny window and craned her neck back to gaze up at it.

"Maker," she whispered. 

It was as dire a sight as Trevelyan remembered. It reared up out of the jagged rocks above them, a tower of impossible scale. Its black stones drank the light, as dark as the day they were mined, marred only by centuries of bird shit streaking the walls. Tiny dots wheeled about its zenith, either black cormorants or ravens. Its windows, mere slits, were dark. 

He was in two places at once again. He was here, the Inquisitor, and he was then, a boy of nine, shivering in chains, wondering when the nightmare would end and he'd wake up in his bed back in his family's castle. Then, as now, the tower watched him. 

"I cannot fathom how they built it," said Cassandra. 

"A lot of gold and patience," said Trevelyan. From what little he'd read, its construction in the Glory Age had been a marvel. Tons of black stone shipped across the crashing sea to this tiny jut of rock, where dwarven stonemasons toiled in freezing wind and spray to build the Chantry its Circle tower.

 _All the better to keep a few dozen men and women locked away_ , thought Trevelyan.

“Almost there!” The ferryman was fighting with the wheel now. The small ship crested wave after wave, plunging down into crashing surf. Dorian moaned. Cassandra’s fingers went white where she gripped her seat. Trevelyan gritted his teeth, his stomach hitting the bottom of his ribs. White foam slathered them on all sides like milk.

“How are we supposed to dock in this weather?” shouted Cassandra.

“We’re not,” said Trevelyan. “We’ll have to jump.”

“What?!” she shouted.

The noise became too much after that. They watched the ferryman at the wheel, a lone figure indifferent to the waves smashing over the deck. His two sons laughed and sang drunkenly at the ropes. The little ship steered perilously through the jagged rocks around the island, always one wave away from being dashed against them. There was a moment of horror, when a wave surged under the boat and almost tipped it full sideways, but the captain righted them, and they gushed into calmer waters.

One of the sons slapped his hand on the rail. “Up, up!”

Cole lifted Dorian gently by the elbow. They crept carefully onto the deck, holding onto a rope provided them.

A low pier appeared through the waves and spray. The captain angled the boat there. One of the sons threw a rope at its planks and lassoed it. The current beat against them. They were close, but not close enough.

This had been the worst part of the journey as a child. The Templars had picked him up by his armpits, his chains dangling between his ankles and wrists, and thrown him onto the dock, joking all the while about dropping him.

He measured the distance. Then, with one powerful leap, landed on the pier.

Cassandra came next, heavy in her armor. Cole landed light as a feather. Trevelyan steadied himself on his staff and turned around. 

Dorian studied the gap with glazed eyes. 

“He’s not going to do it,” said Cassandra.

 _Worse_ , thought Trevelyan. _If he tries, he'll fail._

Throwing out a hand, Trevelyan _gripped_ the ship.

It nearly threw him off his feet. The wood groaned against his hold, the sea yanking him. The Veil frayed around his fingertips as he held the ship steady.

“Dorian!” he shouted.

Dorian blinked. He came alive and, with one floundering jump, landed flat on his face on the pier.

Trevelyan let the ship go. Cassandra kicked loose the rope, and the ship veered away instantly, back out to sea. They were left on the dock, all of them soaked to the bone.

Trevelyan bent to help Dorian up, remembered that he might not want his touch, and withdrew his hand. Dorian got to his feet on his own, trembling. 

"You did that when you were a boy?" asked Cassandra.

"More or less," said Trevelyan. "Come on, it's drier the higher we get."

Adjusting his pack, he led them up the narrow steps carved into the rock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have gotten busy at work, so the next chapter might take a little longer to edit. Thank you to everyone reading along. :0


	5. Chapter 5

They climbed the stairs to higher ground, the waves fading to distant thunder behind them. Wind lashed their faces. Trevelyan leaned on his staff as he cleared the last step. His eyes lifted to the tower looming above them. 

“The reports did not specify whether the rift was inside or not,” said Cassandra, panting up the last few steps.

“No, they didn’t," said Trevelyan.

“Old, old blood.” Cole shivered. “No one was ever happy here.”

Dorian pulled up the rear. Some of his color had returned. He took a swig from his canteen and surveyed the island.

“Do you feel that?” he asked. “It’s like Redcliffe.”

“How so?” asked Trevelyan.

“I mean, it feels like the region around Redcliffe when there were those rifts that slowed and sped up time. This island is temporally unstable.”

Trevelyan felt along the tattered edges of the Veil with his mind. Dorian was right. There was a slipperiness to the way the magic moved that was familiar.

"What does that mean?" asked Cassandra. 

"No idea," said Dorian. "We're dealing with theoretical magic. It could mean anything or nothing." 

"In your expertise, how dangerous is it?" asked Cassandra.

"If this was a bedtime story, I'd say that for every hour we spend here, a year passes in the outside world, but realistically? So long as we mind our spellwork, we should be fine." 

"The Veil is definitely torn here," said Trevelyan. "It was ragged when I was a boy, but never like this." 

“Let me see,” said Cassandra.

She raised her hand. A magical purge boomed out around her, kicking up dust. The Veil's threads re-stitched...

...only to fray moments later. They came spilling open, gushing mana over them like ice water.

“The rift has damaged this area significantly,” she said. “It's good we came when we did. There's no telling what would have happened to the mainland had we neglected it. Is there anything on the far side of the island?”

“Not really,” said Trevelyan. “There's a few paths that go down to the water, but for the most part, what you see is what there is.”

“Then the rift must be inside. We should enter and canvas it room by room,” said Cassandra.

 _Yes_ , thought Trevelyan, with a great sense of unreality. _Let’s see what the old beast has in its belly._

As they walked the rocky path to the tower, the sense of duality that had plagued him since that morning returned. He was nine years old, a boy shivering as he was dragged to his fate. He was thirty-three, an animal re-entering its cage. The Black Tower soon blocked the horizon, becoming the only thing in their line of sight. The sun was at their back, and the tower's shadow out at sea, but the world grew dimmer as they neared. 

The massive stone doors to the tower were ajar. Between the doors was darkness. 

“The Seekers must have left them open,” said Cassandra.

"What's that above the door?" asked Dorian. 

"An inscription," said Cassandra. "Many of the towers had such decorations on their facades when they were first built. Those that remain were heavily enchanted to protect them from the elements." 

" _May The Maker Have Mercy On Your Soul,_ " said Dorian. "Charming." 

Trevelyan used his shoulder to push the left door open further. The daylight did not penetrate the darkness. He wreathed his hand in flame and held it inside.

The cold of the tower leeched the warmth from his flesh.

“Inquisitor?” asked Cassandra.

 _Empty,_ he told himself. _Empty. You are nothing and no one. Do you think you matter? Empty. Emotions are the mind's filth. Pour them in the gutter._

Taking a breath, he stepped inside.

* * *

Darkness consumed them. After a few moments, Dorian lit his own flame. The main entryway led down a long tunnel, past iron door after iron door. All ajar. All empty. 

Something squeaked. Their fire illuminated a rat with red eyes. It darted along the wall, disappearing into a crack in the stone.

 _“Hunger like knives, belly stuck to ribs,_ ” muttered Cole. “The rats missed people. They’ve had to eat each other instead.”

"Instead?" said Dorian. 

“We always had a rat problem. They came in with supply barrels and got stuck here. They'd bite you in your sleep if you weren't careful," said Trevelyan, not mentioning that the rats also ate the dead. 

“That's vile,” said Dorian.

Was it? It seemed so small compared to everything else. During his years in the tower, Trevelyan often woke to rats biting his fingers and toes. He’d bash them with the end of his chains, then store their little bodies in a cold corner, in case the Templars forgot to feed them.

He and the other children would sometimes even play with the dead rats, on the rare occasion when they had the strength for that sort of thing.

“Kick a rat, squash his brains, stomp him flat,” sang Cole, softly. “Tie him to another rat, spin them round, now here’s the king, king rat, king rat, king rat.”

“I didn't think it would be this....bleak,” said Cassandra. “Had we known—”

“You would have what?” said Trevelyan.

She fell into silence. The chatter faded. They strained their ears, listening. 

The tunnel eventually opened on the first floor of the library. The room was three stories high, a staircase winding around its perimeter to the higher floors. The only windows were salt-crusted slits that let in weak, pale light. Dust motes spiraled through the air. Their footsteps echoed off the walls.

Had the Black Tower been a normal Circle, this would have been where the mages studied their craft. Instead, this was where the Templars corralled the mages every morning, and where they spent most of their time, passing the days in a stupor of hunger, lethargy, and petty meanness. There was no curriculum, no structure to their lives. There was only the endless waiting to see which of them would be chosen for the Knight-Commander's experiments. In all the years Trevelyan had lived in the tower, he had never found a single book on the shelves. No one cared if they learned. 

“The Seeker reports never mentioned what became of the library," said Cassandra. "There should be thousands of books here." 

“Maybe the Templars removed them after an incident," said Trevelyan, as neutrally as possible. 

"Possibly," said Cassandra. "The Seekers who investigated said that the Templars and mages killed each other in a terrible battle that lasted days, if not weeks. If there was unrest prior to the rebellion, perhaps the Knight-Commander decided to remove the books to....I don't know. It's certainly odd." 

"It doesn't even look like a battle happened here," said Dorian. 

Trevelyan had noticed that, too. What had really happened in the Circle's final days? The Seekers said they had arrived to find everyone dead, but it seemed more likely they had been given orders to kill all witnesses to the Chantry's crimes. Had they simply marched the mages into a backroom and put them all to the sword? And what of the Templars? Had they been silenced discreetly as well, or had they been smuggled out, their names stricken from the record, permitted by the Chantry to live out the rest of their lives in obscurity? He supposed he could ask-

"Cole?" said Dorian. 

They turned. Cole held himself tightly, his fingernails digging into his own arms, shivering. 

"No, no, no, no," he moaned.

"What's wrong?" asked Dorian. 

_"Nails caked with blood, itching, tearing, stitches come undone, I won't be a rat, I won't be a rat, I won't be a rat...."_

His whispers rustled around the walls like moth wings. 

"They hurt so much," said Cole. "He cut them open, again and again, again and again. A girl with no eyes. A boy with one leg. Another girl cut so that she couldn't talk....They cried until they forgot how, ice around their hearts, bodies split from mind, aware but asleep, thinking but unfeeling, alive but dead. Broken, again and again, no corner left to hide in, not even inside. Pain down to the root and deeper, the soul turned inside out, never the same again." 

"The walls of the tower were said to have dripped with blood by the time the Seekers arrived," said Cassandra. "If the Veil is thin, it's possible the last memories of this place are affecting him." 

"Is that what you're feeling?" asked Dorian. 

Cole's pale eyes lifted to Trevelyan.

"It's all right," said Trevelyan, slowly. "We're your friends. And friends don't hurt each other, not on purpose, remember?" 

Dorian frowned at that.

"Yes," said Cole, finally. "It was. The rebellion." 

Dorian, still frowning, rubbed his back. "It must have been a terrible massacre. Not even the Dales rattled you that badly, and those battlefields were soaked in centuries of blood."

"Sorry," said Cole.

"In any case," said Cassandra, "we need you at your best. Are you fit to fight?" 

Cole wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yes."

Trevelyan waited for either Dorian or Cassandra to ask more questions, but they didn't, and he counted himself lucky that they were inured to Cole's stream-of-consciousness ramblings.

"Well, if there are any demons about, they most likely know we're here by now," said Dorian. 

"It's strange that we haven't seen any yet," said Cassandra.

"I don't even sense the rift," said Trevelyan. Usually, the Anchor crackled when a rift was nearby. The only sensation it gave him now was a confused tingling, like a compass needle spinning. "The tower's big, but not that big." 

"Cole, can you sense anything?" asked Dorian. 

Cole wiped his mouth again. "It’s….here but not here. Will be here? Or was, or….it’s late, but how can it be, if it’s on time?”

“Speak clearly,” said Cassandra.

“I don’t know,” said Cole. “The rift is here, but missing. Like a keyhole is a hole, but part of a door, too.”

"Do you have any idea where it might be in the tower?” asked Trevelyan.

“No,” said Cole. “But....I think it's supposed to be in this room." 

Trevelyan sighed. He was glad not to have to canvas the dungeons, which twisted down into the bowels of the tower like a pitch black maze, but he was going to be very, very angry if they came all this way for nothing.

“'Supposed to be?' 'Here and not here?"' said Cassandra. "What does that even mean?"

“Possibly....” said Dorian, stroking his chin. “Time magic is at work here. The rift might be here, but not _now_.”

“The people in Ostwick claimed to have heard strange sounds at night,” said Cassandra.

“Then maybe that’s when it arrives,” said Dorian. “It spends most of the day in the past or future, then returns here at a certain hour.”

“Yes,” said Cole, brightening. “It travels, but always in the tower, at some time. It’s far now, but getting closer.”

"Is that even possible?" said Cassandra. 

"Magic has no hard rules," said Dorian. "And we've encountered anomalous rifts before, including those that affect the flow of time." 

"Then it seems we have no choice but to wait," said Cassandra, throwing down her pack.

* * *

In the end, they explored the library to keep their muscles warm. Each of them pushed chairs and tables against the wall, so as not to stumble into them later in battle.

Trevelyan wandered through the empty bookshelves. He came to the far end of the room, where a number of windows were crowded together around a nook built into the wall. It might have once housed a shrine to Andraste.

In his childhood, it had been where the Templars played their games.

The Templars hated the Black Tower. They hated being stuck on a rock, hated the endless monotony, hated being unable to leave their post without permission from the Seekers—permission that never came. They drank most of the day. The more they drank, the more their boredom turned to anger. Usually, they went stalking through the shelves in search of children, but when they were in a mood, they called all the mages here.

Trevelyan could hear their voices as if they were inside his ear. 

_“Which of you deserves water? Why don’t you fight to find out?”_

_“Here’s my dagger. Cut her on the arm. Cut her again. I’ll give you an extra ration if you cut her face.”_

_“Put him in your mouth. Do you want to be Tranquil? Don’t make a sound.”_

There was a chair in splinters on the floor. He wondered if some of the mages had tried to hide when the Seekers came to purge them. He tried to remember some of their names. There had been no camaraderie between them. They sold each other out to the Templars all the time if it meant an extra mouthful of food. In the end, they would all be given to the Knight-Commander, so what did it matter? 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Trevelyan inclined his head. Cole hovered behind him.

"Are you feeling better?" asked Trevelyan.

"No," said Cole. "This place--it dreams. And all the dreams are screaming."

Trevelyan suddenly wished he had lied to Josephine and told her that he no longer wanted to take the spirit on his missions. Maybe it would have raised her suspicions, but it couldn't have been worse than the sight of Cole wringing his hands raw.

"What do you mean, 'it wasn't your fault?'" asked Trevelyan. 

"I mean, it wasn't your fault," said Cole.

Trevelyan suddenly remembered a day when he had kicked a boy out of their shared hiding spot under a table, when one of the Templars had come hunting for a body for dissection. That boy had been grabbed and never returned. His bones were probably at the bottom of the sea now, covered in silt. 

“It wasn't your fault," Cole repeated.

 _Empty_ , he told himself. _Empty. You are nothing and no one. You are a body that was raped and cut open. Your emotions are offensive. You are nothing._

Cole was strangely silent. Trevelyan said, “Don't tell me you can't hear that.”

“You told me not to talk about it,” said Cole.

So he had. He turned back to the splinters on the floor. He did remember some of them. Scarlett—an elven girl with a hare lip. Paolo, a human boy from Antiva City; he'd missed his mother. He cried every day until a Templar kicked him in the head. Adelaide, an old woman, blind and sick from all the times she had been cut open. Everyone expected her to die, but she held on. And then there was him, the spoiled little Trevelyan shit, still trying to understand why his family didn't want him anymore and how the world could be so awful. 

He needed some air.

“The rift is still some ways off, yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Cole.

“I’ll be back before then,” said Trevelyan.

Cole said nothing. Trevelyan chose a nearby hallway and walked.

* * *

Trevelyan's feet carried him through the bowels of the tower, sometimes in complete darkness. He had wandered these halls so many times in his dreams that it seemed he was dreaming now, a bird trapped in the belly of a whale. The muffled sigh and crash of the waves through the thick walls fell into the rhythm of his heart. The sound of home.

There was the supply room where Ser Royal lured him with a promise of seal meat. 

There was the training room where he had once found a dead boy who had lain there for days, maggots teeming between the black sutures in his belly. 

There was the window with the high ledge where he had sat and watched the waves, day after day, mind blank. 

_Why didn't we fight back?_ he wondered, his boots loud in the dark tunnels. There had been so few Templars, and yet he couldn't remember a single act of overt rebellion. They had been like beaten dogs, unable to imagine any other life but the cruel one they were given. And what hope was there really? Even if they resisted, there was no way to the mainland.

No, even more than that, the prevailing mood of this place had not been anger, or sorrow, but profound, inescapable boredom.

The days had bled together into meaninglessness. Years passed without mention. Mages arrived, were experimented on, and died. Some vanished as soon as they stepped off the boat, and others, like him, lingered for the better part of a decade, going through the motions of this half-life like a ghost. 

It became normal. There was no happiness, but the mind found ways to numb itself to pain. All that mattered was this moment, and then this moment, until all color drained from the world. 

The sound of the waves was like the breathing of lungs.

Time moved strangely in the dark. Rats scurried over his feet, their tails brushing his ankles. He followed a path he remembered, down to the cells where the mages slept. The Templars didn't trust them with dormitories--too communal, too open--and so had put the few mages in the cells originally meant for the tower staff. His boots scuffed on the stone floor as he came to a long hallway lined with doors. 

Counting them with his fingers, he stopped outside the eleventh door. It was open. 

Lighting his hand, he stepped inside. The cell was four windowless walls with a mildewed cot in the corner. A chain was secured to the wall, its shackle open on the floor.

It was smaller than he remembered.

Brushing his fingers over the walls, he found a series of scratches. When he first arrived in the tower, he had been so certain his pain would amount to something. That someone, someday, would find out what had been done to him, and justice would be served. That suffering would make him wiser, stronger, braver. He had carved his name into the stone with a link of his chain, a record that he was real and always would be.

He dropped his hand. The name on the wall was not Jack. "Jack" was the name he had taken as an apostate. The name on the wall was the name of a dead boy. A stupid, useless dead boy who had no idea that his body was meat, his mind a myth, and his soul breakable. He had no idea that one day, nothing of him would remain. 

He pointed his staff at the wall and focused all his will into the tip. A blast of force slammed into it, hammering dust from between the stones. The name was obliterated into a series of cracks. 

_Empty_ , he told himself, and left. 

* * *

He found a staircase and followed it up, and up, until his muscles ached. Eventually, he came to the top level of the tower, a small dusty room filled with crates of mildewed seed bags and moldy parchment. A ladder led to a trap door in the roof.

Trevelyan tested the ladder with his weight, then climbed it. He threw back the trapdoor. Icy wind washed over his face. He pulled himself up, dander and feathers tickling his nose.

The rookery was roofed, with more windows than walls. As he stood, cormorants shrieked and took flight from the sills. He waited for their wingbeats to fade, then craned his neck back. The bars where the messenger crows had once roosted were all empty. He wondered if the Seekers had killed them, or if they had simply flown away when there was no one left to feed them. 

He went to one of the windows. Cold sea air filled his cloak. Far below, the waves sighed. The city of Ostwick was a gray smudge on the horizon. He ran his palms over the rough window sills, curling his fingers into the divots he remembered. 

“Jack?”

He startled. The voice came from down the staircase.

"I'm here," he called.

A minute later, Dorian came panting up the ladder. He snatched his hand back from where it touched crusted bird droppings, wiping it on his cloak as he got to his feet.

"How in the world did you find me?" asked Trevelyan.

"I asked Cole where you'd gone, and he said, and I quote, _'up high, where the wind is, calling to him like a song.'_ " Dorian gulped deep lungfuls of air, squinting against the wind. "I could kill you for making me climb that many stairs."

"I didn't make you do anything," said Trevelyan. "I just needed....to be alone, I suppose." 

"So you wandered off without a word to anyone? Do you have any idea how _stupid_ that is? Have you forgotten where we are?" 

Trevelyan didn't dignify that with a response.

"Since when are you this careless?" Dorian scowled at him, no doubt wondering when he had turned from the man who fixed problems to the man who caused them. It was so unlike Dorian's usual concerned anger, bordering so close on real dislike, that Trevelyan's chest hurt, and he turned back to the window.

"I'm sorry," said Trevelyan.

"You should be," said Dorian.

"No, I'm sorry I shoved you this morning." 

The wind whistled between the windows. Dorian's boots crunched through fish bones and feathers as he came to stand beside Trevelyan, his silver coat lifting behind him.

"This is not where I imagined having this conversation," said Dorian.

"Nor I." 

"You...." Dorian put his hands on the sill. "Are not the man I wanted you to be. Perhaps that's my fault for wishful thinking."

"I'm sorry-"

"Stop. Right now I'm tired and I don't even want to _try_. Can you respect that?" 

"Yes," said Trevelyan.

"Perhaps later we can, I don't know, figure out a way to make this work, but....is that also wishful thinking?"

"Probably," said Trevelyan.

Dorian didn't look at him. "Then I suppose....this is it." 

A wave surged over the shore below, drawing back into the sea in a hiss of white. Seaweed so dark a green it was black draped like hair over the rocks, tangling, unfurling, tangling again. The view hadn't changed in seventeen years, thought Trevelyan. And it never would.

"What a dreadful place," said Dorian. 

Trevelyan said nothing. The heavy silence rolled over them. It was odd to stand this close and no longer be allowed to touch each other. Trevelyan kept turning the morning over in his head, rewriting it so that he didn't resort to violence, that he simply refused to talk, and Dorian, helpful, sweet man that he was, simply kept chasing after him, begging to be let in. 

Perhaps it was better this way. Dorian deserved someone who could give him their full heart. Trevelyan could not be that man. Whatever humanity had once existed inside him had long been cut out and replaced with emptiness. 

“What’s that?” asked Dorian, pointing down.

Directly under the window was a sandy path. It wrapped around the tower to a flat plateau where a cottage stood. It had a white picket fence with a garden, both long stripped of color. The roof of the cottage was caved in, its windows dark. At the back of the cottage was a large room with a glass dome, all the panes shattered. 

“The Knight-Commander’s house,” said Trevelyan.

“How quaint,” said Dorian, drearily.

Trevelyan swallowed. The Knight-Commander’s house was where mages went when they were chosen for the experiments. He had spent his last year in the tower in that house. 

He forced himself to not touch the jagged scar on his head.

_Empty. Empty. Empty it all, you disgusting thing._

"The sun will be setting soon," said Dorian, wrapping his cloak tighter around him. "We need to get back to the others. Cassandra will flay us both alive if we leave her to deal with the demons by herself."

Trevelyan nodded, numb. He started for the ladder.

"Jack," said Dorian.

Trevelyan turned.

"I still care for you," said Dorian, the last few syllables barely air. "I won't ask you to remain my friend, but....I wanted to give you something yesterday. I put it in your pack, hoping it would be a surprise. Clearly, I have the worst timing, but if you still want it....I hope we can talk someday."

Trevelyan could barely muster a response. There was nothing in the world that could help him. That much, the last few days had proven.

"There's nothing to say," said Trevelyan. 

And with that, the last fragile thread between them broke. It came apart softly, like a sigh, and Trevelyan knew it was truly over. He had failed every test of love, and Dorian, for the last time, regarded him with hurt eyes as the door was slammed in his face. 

The two of them left the rookery, descending back into the belly of the tower.


	6. Chapter 6

Dorian and Trevelyan's silence must have spoken for itself, because Cassandra didn't question their absence upon their return. Trevelyan found a corner to mix a lyrium potion, while Dorian sat in a chair to sharpen his staff. Cole flittered over to Dorian, only for Dorian to snap at him. The spirit bowed his head, and no one spoke after that. 

They lit torches as the sun set. Outside, the wind howled, and inside the darkness thickened. The chill of the tower sank into their damp clothes, and they had to pace around the library to keep themselves limber.

Trevelyan couldn't help but steal glances at Dorian. The Tevinter focused on swinging his staff in practice arcs, his back turned to the half of the room Trevelyan occupied. Cassandra studied the distance between them, brows furrowed, but again, wisely, said nothing.

 _Save it for the voyage back,_ thought Trevelyan. What a dour trip that would be. She would poke and prod him for details, as would everyone at Skyhold. They would make the necessary sad noises, reassure him that there was nothing he could have done, that sometimes two people aren't meant to be together. 

But behind his back, they would whisper the same thing: was it any wonder Dorian left him? Following the Inquisitor into battle was one thing, but could you really imagine taking him to bed? Trevelyan, who might as well have been a golem for all the affection he showed, was of course a poor match. It was never going to work. 

And he would agree with them. Had he the ability to change, he would have, but the Templars had taken something from him, and he couldn't get it back.

The Black Tower had ruined him.

Cole perked up like a dog at the sound of footsteps. 

“It's almost here," he said. 

Trevelyan snapped to attention. He swung his staff into the crook of his arm, marching to Cole's side. “Can you tell where?”

Cole frowned. Slowly, he pointed to the far end of the library.

“There,” he said, and unsheathed his daggers. 

They stood together, waiting. The last of the grey light slid up the walls, then faded. The night was like water. The torches struggled against it.

And as if it had always been there, shimmering like green glass, was the rift.

It would have been invisible if not for the dark. It turned over like a thread, silent.

The Anchor hissed in Trevelyan’s hand. “Everyone spread out,” he said. “Don’t get yourself cornered.”

They advanced on the rift. The closer they got, the more the Anchor flared. Within fifty paces, the rift sprayed green light. It tore with a _krrrrrshhh_ like a ripped curtain.

A pale hand with too many joints planted itself on the floor, followed by a long, bulging body.

“Get to it,” said Trevelyan, and fade-stepped across the room.

Demons staggered out of the rift. Two terror demons with their dangling jaws, a despair demon that sailed over the bookshelves in a trail of frost. A rage demon poured out of the rift like a mudslide, fire licking across the floor like flaming candlewax from its bulk. It drew itself up and slapped a hand onto the floor, smoke trailing oily black from its molten fingers. 

Dorian swung his staff in a high arc and blasted it with ice. The rage demon threw up its arm in a snarl, its flesh blackening. It tugged against its ice prison, while Dorian hammered it with lightning, thunder booming off the walls.

Cassandra had taken off after the despair demon behind a bookshelf, her shouts echoing as she hacked at it with her sword. Cole was a shadow, there one moment, gone in a puff of smoke the next, but from the shrieks of the terror demons, his daggers found their marks. 

Trevelyan knew his job. With the demons distracted, he zigzagged across the room until he was directly under the rift. Its hot wind blew back his duster, and he threw up his arm to meet it.

The threads of the rift were slippery and spilled out of his grasp like cut hair. The Veil was so tattered that he couldn’t get a good grip. 

“Dammit.” He spun his staff, twining the threads around the focus stone. Then he seized them in his hand as if they were a skein of yarn, and tugged. The Anchor hissed and spat like an angry cat, its magic at last ensnarling with the rift's. The threads began to stitch back together. 

He checked over his shoulder. A terror demon was stalking after Cole between the bookcases, but Cole vaulted over the top and came down on its back. Dorian drove a spear of ice through the rage demon's eye.

“Come on.” Trevelyan turned back to the rift. It was shrinking, and inside its glassy depths he saw—

His heart skipped a beat.

A face gazed back at him. It was a boy with a shaved head, his eyes hollow and bruised. He lay on a table, his wrists and ankles strapped to it with leather cuffs. A man was forcing a wooden bar between his teeth, and the boy's eyes gazed upward, as if asking, why, why is this happening?

"That's me," whispered Trevelyan. 

“It’s leaving!” cried Cole.

The rift tugged him. He suddenly felt the same as he did that day in Redcliffe, when Alexius had hurled the amulet at him: as if he was in two places at once. Something pulled behind his belly button, and he was moving—

“NO!” Dorian ran and grabbed him by the arm. Trevelyan realized what was about to happen. He yanked his arm back, but the Anchor was not done, and could not tear itself from the rift.

The rift vanished into the past and took him and Dorian with it. 


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn't like Redcliffe. 

The rift dragged Trevelyan by his arm, tearing the ligaments and tendons like parchment. Dorian clung to his other arm. They were catapulting at what felt like a thousand miles-an-hour through howling darkness, their eyeballs being shoved into their skulls by horrific force-

And then the tether snapped. 

Trevelyan landed hard on stone. The breath flew out of him. Dorian crashed nearby with a squawk.

It was as if a giant had squeezed Trevelyan in its fist. Every inch of him ached like a bruise. He tried to push himself up, but his left arm screamed, limp and unresponsive at his side. 

A silvery orb was tossed over his head. 

"Talk to me." Dorian crawled over to him. "Jack, say something."

Dorian gently sat him up. Pain flared in Trevelyan's shoulder. 

“Go to Ostwick, see the sights, sample the local cuisine, what could possibly happen...." said Dorian. 

Trevelyan still couldn’t speak. His breath was back, but the pain in his shoulder blocked out everything.

"That's dislocated," said Dorian. "Bear with me."

Putting the sole of his boot against Trevelyan's shoulder, Dorian grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled. Trevelyan bit back a scream- until there was a _pop_. Unbearable relief washed over him. He pressed a hand to his shoulder and forced heat into it.

"Is it bad?" asked Dorian.

"I don't think I'll be able to use it for a while," said Trevelyan. "Are you injured?" 

"Other than a bump on my head the size of a dracolisk egg, no. _Vishante kaffas_ , what are the odds of accidental time travel twice in one lifetime?" 

The phrase "time travel" nearly drove the breath out of him all over again. Trevelyan remembered his own face staring back at him from inside the rift. 

_No_ , he thought. _No, please, not this, not with him._

"Do you know where we are?" asked Dorian. 

Trevelyan forced himself to breathe evenly. Their surroundings were the same as any other in the Black Tower: iron doors in a dark hallway. The drains in the floor, however, were unique to one level.

"The dungeons," said Trevelyan.

"Why can't we hear the ocean?" asked Dorian. 

"The dungeons are deep underground. We're on the lowest level of the tower."

"And guards?"

They listened. Their fall into Redcliffe Castle had alerted the Venatori immediately. They had crashed out of thin air the same way then as now, but no Templars came running. The dungeons were as silent as a tomb.

"The dungeons were rarely used," said Trevelyan. "There are stories about the Qunari putting subversives in these cells when they invaded Ostwick during the Storm Age, but other than that, they mostly gathered dust." 

"Do you have a guess _when_ we are?" asked Dorian.

Trevelyan needed to lie. There was so much here that he didn't want Dorian to see....but they were in dire straits. He couldn't hide everything in good conscience. "I think this is still the Dragon Age." 

"How can you tell?" asked Dorian. 

"I saw things in the rift that I recognized," said Trevelyan. 

"People?" asked Dorian. 

"Yes." 

"So there's a good chance the upper levels of the tower are crawling with Templars?" 

"If the rift dropped us when I think it did, yes," said Trevelyan. 

Dorian looked around. There was a staff on the floor nearby- Trevelyan's. He had held it in a death-grip as they hurtled through time, then released it when he smacked against the floor. Dorian's staff was nowhere to be seen. 

"I think I dropped mine," said Dorian. "I'll have to use yours. Unless you think you can wield it with one hand?" 

Trevelyan shook his head. 

"Well, regardless, we've really stepped in it this time." Dorian got to his feet. "Trapped in the past, an army of zealots above our heads, with no amulet to get us back." 

The idea of being stuck here, here of all times and places, sent bile up Trevelyan's throat. In Redcliffe, he had been resigned to the possibility of being stranded, but now, his panic threatened to choke him. "Maybe the rift is still here. If we can find it, it might be able to get us back to our own time." 

“Wishful thinking." Dorian offered him a hand. 

Trevelyan accepted it with his non-mangled arm. Though he lacked Dorian's expertise, he understood his pessimism. Magic was unpredictable by nature. Most likely, the rift's appearances and disappearances were arbitrary, with only its point of origin remaining constant. There was a distinct possibility that the rift was gone for good, and this was there new reality.

Trevelyan opened the fingers of his left hand. His entire arm was stiff with pain, but he focused past it to the Anchor. It stung. Walking a few paces down the hallway, the stinging shifted direction, ever so slightly, like a compass needle.

"The rift is still here," he said. "...or will be here. I can feel it nearby."

"Are you sure?" asked Dorian. 

"Yes," said Trevelyan, though it was entirely possible he was deluding himself. "We'll need to find it. Unless you have a better idea?" 

"I was planning on surrendering to the Templars with a charming alibi, but I like your plan better," said Dorian. "We'll need to be cautious, though. There's no telling what we'll find when we go upstairs. We might even run into _you_." 

The face from the rift had gazed back at him with a wooden bar between its teeth. "That's...disturbing." 

"It is," said Dorian. "Because there's no telling how our actions will affect history."

"Is that something we should worry about?"

Dorian shrugged. "There are many schools of thought on the subject. Alexius subscribed to the butterfly theory: step on a butterfly in the past and you might wipe out all life in the future. Personally, I subscribe to the less dramatic idea of linear causality: anything we do in the past we've already done. No way to know for sure. We're in completely theoretical territory."

"That's not reassuring."

"I wouldn't worry overmuch about it. Let's just hope it's the dead of night and no one notices two fully armed mages creeping through the tower."

They spent a few minutes sharing the last lyrium potion. Dorian picked up Trevelyan's staff and gave it a few practice swings, adjusting to its weight and length. Then they stood face to face with each other, two men outside of their own time, once again. The rational part of Trevelyan's mind whispered that now was the moment to come clean, that the stakes were too high to keep lying....

But the part of him that had been lying every day for decades gripped him in iron jaws. They would get out of this place quickly. Let Dorian believe whatever he wanted from what little he saw. He would not get the truth from Trevelyan's lips. 

"If there's a way out, we'll find it, I promise," said Dorian. "Don't worry, I'm here, I'll-"

"Follow me and kill the light," said Trevelyan. 

And then, to himself, 

_Empty_. 

* * *

Finding the wall with his good hand, Trevelyan followed it. His boot hit a staircase, and they took it up, down another long block of iron doors. Slowly, the rumble of waves returned. A draft of fresh air brushed their faces, and they followed it, until they came to a final staircase.

Trevelyan went up first, feeling with his fingers until they found metal. 

Crouching, he grasped the iron ring affixed to the door and pushed.

It opened with a shriek. It was as black in the hall as it had been in the dungeons. 

Trevelyan hoped Dorian was right about it being night. Ostwick’s Templars rarely went on patrol, since they made a point to shackle the mages to their beds and often went upstairs to drink afterwards. Entire wings of the tower simply remained dark, with no one to light their sconces.

As Trevelyan pushed the door open wider, Dorian squeezed his arm.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. 

Trevelyan started to pull the door closed, remembered its squeaky hinges, and froze. A Templar shuffled into view, carrying a torch.

The Templar wiped the back of his hand across his bristly mouth, his skin slick with sweat. He was wearing only some of his armor, most of it flecked with rust. He swayed, his eyes glassy. 

Trevelyan’s mind raced. All the Templar needed to do was glance down and he would see them. They could kill him before he did, before he shouted and gave the alarm-

But the Templar didn't look down. He staggered onward. A moment later, they heard a clatter of armor. The torchlight jumped on the wall.

"I think he was in his cups," whispered Dorian. "Did he fall?" 

Trevelyan fished around his pockets until he found his shaving mirror. Cupping it in his hand, he angled it out the door. Sure enough, the Templar lay on the floor, the torch guttering beside him.

They crept into the hall. The Templar did not stir. His cheeks fluttered with snores. 

"We shouldn't linger," whispered Dorian. "His fellows might come looking for him." 

Trevelyan thought that unlikely. The Templars were so complacent, and their duties so lax, that they hardly noticed when one of their own went missing for hours at a time. He bent down and inspected the Templar's armor. The man's head was half inside his helm, the visor open. He had a gorget, a breastplate, a tabard, and gauntlets. "We can at least make ourselves look less conspicuous. Can you undress him?"

"That might be the worst thing you've ever asked of me." Dorian knelt and began uncinching the armor.

Trevelyan kept watch, cradling his wounded arm against his side, while Dorian stripped the Templar of his piecemeal armor. The Templar slept through it all, drool shiny on his chest.

"Was it common for Templars to drink themselves into unconsciousness when you were here?" Dorian grimaced, rolling the naked Templar onto his belly, and tied his hands with the man's stained tunic. 

"Yes," said Trevelyan. 

Dorian stuffed the man's smallclothes into his mouth. "Did you know him?" 

Trevelyan did. Ser Malor had liked to play cat and mouse with little mage boys in the library.

"No," he said. 

With enormous effort, Dorian dragged the bound Templar down the dungeon stairwell. He deposited him at the bottom, then returned, wiping his hands on his trousers.

"We should lose our cloaks," said Trevelyan.

Dorian's jaw clenched. His sea silk cloak had been one of Trevelyan's first gifts to him, and he had worn it on nearly every mission they had gone on together. Nevertheless, he shrugged it off. Trevelyan did likewise with his duster, though he needed help getting his left arm out of its sleeve. 

"Where should we put them?" asked Dorian. 

"Not the stairwell," said Trevelyan. "These aren't Circle robes, and if that Templar wakes up, we don't need him wondering where these came from." 

There was a door nearby, a small chamber that might once have held supplies for the dungeon guards. They stuffed the cloaks in a corner of dust and rat turds, then shut the door. All that was left was distributing the Templar's armor. 

"You should wear the helm," said Trevelyan. "No offense, but you don't look like you're from the south." 

Dorian plucked the helm off the ground and curled his nose at it. He fitted it over his head, tugging the sweat-stained chin strap into place. 

"It smells like a bogfisher's arse in here." Dorian shut the visor. "You'll forgive me if I breathe through my mouth."

Dorian took the breastplate, gorget, and gauntlets as well. It at least made him look like a real Templar. Trevelyan made due with the Templar's stained tabard. He might pass for a knight who had lazily shucked off his armor for the day, which given the lack of discipline among the Order in Ostwick, was not uncommon.

"We'll need to find you a helm as well," said Dorian. "In the meantime-" 

He wiped a hand over Trevelyan's face. 

"What was that?" asked Trevelyan.

"A minor illusion charm," said Dorian. "It won't change your appearance, but it will make you less eye-catching." 

Trevelyan understood what he meant. He was bald, with a nasty scar on his head. A scar that any mage or Templar in Ostwick would instantly recognize. He tugged the tabard's hood over his head for good measure. 

The _smell_ of Ser Malor washed over him. The man was real, and alive, right now, his sweat touching Trevelyan all over. The reek of ale in the tabard was so strong he could taste it, as if the man's big tongue was being forced into his nine-year-old mouth again.

 _Empty_ , he told himself. _Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Pour them out like dirty water._

"Which way now?" Dorian's voice echoed inside the helm. 

Trevelyan uncurled his fingers. The Anchor stung worse than before. It pointed to the higher levels of the tower. 

"We'll take a shortcut," he said. 

* * *

The wind stung their faces as they walked along a path cut into the cliff beneath the tower. The walkway would normally be lashed by waves, but the tide was low, and the rocks beneath were clearly visible in all their jagged malice. A seagull took off with slow wingbeats as they walked, the vast shadow of the tower like a cold weight above them. 

The gray clouds hid the sun, but if Trevelyan had to guess, it was late morning. 

"What was this ledge built for?" asked Dorian, raising his voice to be heard above the surf. "It must be underwater half the day." 

"Fishing, mostly," said Trevelyan.

The sea was vicious but distant, the exposed rock below creating a natural barrier between them and the water. A few waves still managed to crash nearby, dragging white fingers of foam back through the crags and crannies of the stone. The seawater that managed to spray their faces was icy, but not as cold as it could have been. There were no floes in the water.

 _Late Spring_ , thought Trevelyan. 

A wave sluiced over the rocks, slapping the side of the bulwark hard enough to drench the walkway. Trevelyan walked faster, eager to get out of the wet, when he realized Dorian had stopped walking. 

He turned and found the Tevinter squinting at the rocks.

"What?" asked Trevelyan. 

Dorian didn't answer. Trevelyan followed his gaze. Broken casks of ale, shattered glass, and snapped crab traps were strewn across the rocks. Smaller refuse was scattered about also, though most of it was being dragged out by the waves. Chicken bones tumbled down the rocks, between the shells of chestnuts and strips of shit-smeared parchment. This was where the trash of the Circle was dumped. It was likely that Ser Malor had been here earlier, heaving the crates of refuse over the wall for the tide to claim.

He wasn't sure why it had caught Dorian's attention, until he saw it. 

There, between two rocks, gently being lifted and lowered by the waves, was a skull.

The longer he looked, the more bones he saw. Femurs, tibias, an open ribcage open to the sky. They had all been picked clean, but by some happenstance had gotten stuck between rocks, unaffected by the tides.

"Why...." said Dorian. "Why would there be bones here?" 

Trevelyan knew why. He had carried bodies down here before, sometimes with the help of another mage, sometimes alone. They would strip the bodies naked, then heave them over the side. The rats would come out in the hundreds and pick the flesh from the bones. How many times had he stood here on this wall, watching the rats cover a dead mage in a writhing carpet, until the body was lost from sight. How many times had he thought, "that's going to be me someday"? 

"People die in the Circle," said Trevelyan. "The dead have to go somewhere." 

"You don't build them pyres?" said Dorian. 

"No trees."

"Surely, they wouldn't have done that to you?"

"Why not?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Because you're nobility," said Dorian. "Even if your family despises you, the Templars would never risk such a slight. They would have returned your body to the mainland." 

"I'm not a noble, Dorian, I'm a mage. The Black Tower was meant to keep us secure, not comfortable. We lived lean here."

Dorian frowned at that. There was a growing keenness in his expression that Trevelyan didn't like. "Evidently." 

He stared down at the skull, at where it rattled like a dice on the rocks, then pulled away. They entered through another iron door and ascended the steps into the belly of the tower. 

_Empty_ , _you disgusting creature_ , a voice whispered inside him, where it had always been. _Pour your emotions out like the filth they are. Empty._

* * *

The closer they got to the center of the tower, the more cautious they became.

Daylight streamed through windows, and the sound of waves made listening for footsteps difficult. So far, they had encountered no other Templars, but they fell into the habit of stalling outside of doors, often for no reason other than they mistook the soft clack of Dorian's armor for someone else's. 

"Where is everyone?" said Dorian. 

"This Circle had fewer than a hundred mages," said Trevelyan. "Most of us spent our days in the library. There's no staff here, not even a full garrison. The tower was mostly derelict." 

"Like a haunted house," murmured Dorian. "Did you hear that?" 

Trevelyan halted. All he heard was the sigh of the sea. 

"I thought I heard a voice," said Dorian.

Trevelyan strained his ears. He didn't hear anything under the white noise, but better safe than sorry. "In here, quick." 

He chose a random door and went inside, tugging it shut behind them. They breathed together in the dark, listening for voices beyond. Dorian took a step back, bumped into something, and sent something else clattering to the floor. 

"Careful," hissed Trevelyan. 

"Sorry, I'm not a _bat_." Dorian lit the focus stone of Trevelyan's staff. 

Trevelyan's heart began to pound. 

The room was filled with surgical equipment. There were jars filled with black water, forceps, syringes with cracked glass, pumps made from dragon bladders, leather tourniquets, knives with enchanted edges, all blackened with old gore, all stacked haphazardly. Trevelyan could scarcely breathe. Almost all the rooms in this wing of the tower had been empty when he was a child. This one must have been re-purposed as a dumping ground.

"What is all this?" said Dorian. 

"I don't know," said Trevelyan, his head swimming. "They...."

On top of a crate was a trephine. Its toothed, circular nose was crusted with old blood. 

Trevelyan's legs trembled, and he caught himself on the wall. There wasn't enough air in his chest and he took a deep, shuddering breath. 

_Empty_ , he willed himself. _Empty. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction, pour them out like dirty water. Do you want to die? You disgusting animal, pour them out, pour them out, get rid of them, they never helped you, fear is weakness, pour it out, pain is distraction, pour it out, hope is a trap, pour it out, love is a lie, pour it out, pour it out, you disgusting, empty, ugly thing-_

"Jack?" said Dorian. 

"It's nothing." Trevelyan took a deep gulp of air. He was coming apart inside. He was supposed to be smarter than this, stronger, better, anything but a trembling child. "I'm just....unwell." 

Dorian studied him, that same frown on his face as before. "Do you need to sit down?"

"Just give me a damned minute." Trevelyan moved away from him. The numbness that had once been so reliable had, since a week ago, scattered, leaving him confused and unfocused. Now, it was as if seventeen years of panic and nausea were clawing up his throat, turning his mind to mush. 

_Empty. Empty._ _Empty_. 

"Where did those words come from?" Cole had asked. 

Trevelyan wasn't sure. The words had simply always been inside him. He couldn't remember where they had come from, only that there was a time before and after the words. The time before had been marked by fear and pain. The terror of his life in the tower had been so acute, so soul-shattering, that it had driven him mad. And then, just as it seemed the fear would annihilate him, rising higher and higher to fever pitch, something inside him had broken. Numbness replaced agony. A wall of ice barricaded his mind from all emotion. He had welcomed it. He had welcomed emptiness. 

Emptiness was useful. Emptiness kept the mind clear. He might have lost joy, curiosity, pleasure, but they were small prices to pay to survive in a world built to destroy him. He had watched other mages fall to pieces, both in the tower and outside it, and their weakness made them easy prey for Templars. But he had been quick, and clever, and clear. He had survived. Numbness, emptiness, cold clarity, was better than life as a scared child. 

And why would he want to feel anyway? He didn't want to remember the way his parents hadn't cared when he cried. He didn't want to remember the way the Templars laughed when he begged. He didn't want to remember the thousand collapses of the soul that had killed him over and over again. 

He didn't want to feel. 

Given the choice between emotional chaos and numb control, he would always choose the latter. The words had given that to him. They were a soothing mantra that killed the few emotions that penetrated the ice inside him. He focused on them, and the fog cleared. He had always assumed they were a sign of his mental fortitude, his ability to withstand pain and doubt in situations that would crush other men. They were the bloody screws that held his mind together. 

Where had they come from? 

"Jack-" said Dorian. 

"I know," snapped Trevelyan. _Empty. Empty, please_. "I think..." It felt as if he was watching himself from the outside as he checked the Anchor. It prickled in his palm. It was pointing in the direction of the library, where the mages would be at this time of day. 

"We'll need to go through the library," said Trevelyan. "Stay close to me." 

Dorian touched his back. He didn't say anything, but followed. 

* * *

The main entrances to the library were too exposed, so Trevelyan chose a less frequented hallway at the back. He and Dorian stood in the shadows, listening. 

"Is the rift in there?" whispered Dorian. 

The Anchor was burning now. The rift was nearby, but it was impossible to tell where. "I don't know." 

"I don't hear anyone," said Dorian. 

Neither did Trevelyan, but that didn't mean anything. The tower could be as loud as a madhouse one day, silent as a grave the next. 

"We need to move," whispered Dorian. "We can't risk the rift leaving without us." 

No, they couldn't. "Walk quickly and confidently. Act like you belong here." 

There was no one in sight, just empty bookshelf after empty bookshelf, scarred tables, and chairs missing legs. Trevelyan prayed all the Templars were as hungover as Ser Malor, then walked. 

Dorian followed, his pace leisurely, the staff in his hand loose as if he had found it somewhere.

They were past the first row of shelves when someone whispered, 

".....itches...."

Trevelyan didn't stop. The harder he listened, the more he could hear other whispers, the tiny sounds of bodies all around. There were no mages visible, and Trevelyan understood why. He and Dorian were dressed as Templars, and even on the days when the Templars could find it in themselves to be kind, it was best not to test their anger. Better to stay unseen in the hiding places between shelves, forgotten until nightfall when the Templars came to count heads and herd their charges back into their cells. 

But he could hear them. Some voices he knew, others he didn't.

"....don't scratch...." 

".....can't feel my...." 

"......smells wrong....." 

".....can't....like I used to....."

".....itches......" 

".....bribed him....." 

"....gave you a real....?" 

"....you can have it if...."

".....no....." 

".....think he found a place to...." 

"....why didn't they look for...." 

"....wasn't going to make it...." 

"....itches..."

They were almost halfway across the library. The Anchor was hissing, pulling him in the direction of the main entranceway that he, Dorian, Cassandra, and Cole had taken that morning, seventeen years in the future. There was a wide aisle before them now, an gap between the shelves. He glanced left and right, making sure no Templars were coming.

And nearly ran into a mage who emerged from the shelves at the same time. 

Trevelyan and Dorian halted. The little boy halted as well, face to face with them. 

He had no eyes. 

There were only two smooth caves in his skull, the scars from stitches visible. His head was shaved, his robe putrid. His nostrils flared at them, inhaling the sweat and ale of Ser Malor's clothes.

Trevelyan grabbed Dorian's arm and urged him onward.

The Anchor crackled. The whispers grew louder. 

"....the Knight-Commander..." 

"....who does he have now...." 

"....the same one as before...."

"....he's lasted this long...." 

They passed an elf under a table, muttering to herself, black bruises on her bare chest. 

"...how long has he been...."

".....almost a year...." 

".....how has he...."

".....they want this one to survive...."

A little boy lay in a window seat, drool soaking his robe from where most of his jaw had been removed. A fly crawled in his ear. 

"....what was his name....?" 

"....who cares..."

The main entryway was right there. No Templars in sight. A few steps, and they would be out of the library. The Anchor was spitting now, eager. Trevelyan checked behind him. Dorian was reaching to touch the boy in the window seat, as if to make sure he was still alive. 

"Don't," hissed Trevelyan.

Dorian's expression was hidden behind his helm. He pulled his hand back and followed. 

They moved into the main entryway. Trevelyan stopped around the curve, where they were well out of sight. He could feel Dorian behind him.

"Jack-" 

"Shut up." His insides were buzzing. He did not want to see this again. He didn't want _Dorian_ to see this. These people were all dead. He had stolen food from them as a boy, ratted them out to Templars over minor infractions just to see them beaten, and felt bitter, vicious relief after they were taken away. He had loved them, sometimes, cared for their wounds, and brought them water when they could not get it themselves. He had escaped and left them here and never once looked back.

"Where's the rift?" whispered Dorian.

Trevelyan paced. If it wasn't in the library, or down below, or up above, where was it? In front of the tower? Somewhere outside- 

And then he knew.

_No. No, no, no._

The Anchor pointed him to a red door in the wall. 

* * *

The door opened on a sandy path. Sea oats shifted in the wind, the sky heavy and gray. The wind caught his tabard, tugging it hard. The further down the path they went, the more the Anchor snarled.

At the end of the path was a cottage.

The Knight-Commander’s house.

_Empty._

Trevelyan pushed open the garden gate. The vegetables were tied to posts to keep them upright in the wind. All the curtains were drawn over the windows.

His hand shook as he reached for the door.

Dorian seized his wrist. "Are you sure-" 

Trevelyan shook his hand loose. What choice did they have? He opened the door. 

A long hallway stretched into darkness. The smell of pipe smoke filled his nose.

_Empty. You are nothing and no one._

The floorboards creaked under their tread. Smoke-browned portraits watched them from the walls.

_Empty. You are nothing and no one._

There was a door at the end of the hall, ajar. Sunlight burned around its edge.

_Empty. You are-_

“You are nothing and no one.”

The voice came from beyond the door. Trevelyan slid behind it and peered through the hinges. Inside was a circular room with a glass domed roof. A man stood over a boy strapped to a table.

“Do you hear me? You are nothing and no one.” said Knight-Commander du Lac. He was broad shouldered with graying temples. His hands were red. “No one but me knows you even exist. No one cares if you live or die but me. Can you even hear me, you disgusting creature?”

The boy was naked, a wooden bar between his teeth, his head suspended in a cradle of steel spokes and needles to keep it still. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, unseeing, glazed with so many layers of pain as to be dumb.

“Can you _hear_ me?” repeated the man.

There was an incision along the left side of the boy’s head. A circular segment of bone had been removed, revealing the red flesh beneath. A massive magnifying glass was positioned in a handle over it, and nearby a piece of flesh was pinned to a board, surrounded by a glass etched with runes. Bloody instruments lay on a tray nearby.

The man leaned down close to the boy’s ear. “You are nothing and no one, do you understand? You wouldn’t be here otherwise. So stop playing dumb. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Empty whatever filth is inside you and do as I say. You want it to stop hurting? Then focus and _empty_."

The man picked up a blade thin as an eyelash. He touched it, carefully, to brain tissue.

Fire leapt across the boy's fingers.

The man touched the blade to a different place.

Frost replaced fire.

“Good,” said the man.

He pressed the blade to a third place, and lightning crackled in the air.

"Good boy," he said. 

All at once, the life seemed to drain from the Knight-Commander. He set the blade down and went to a basin and washed his arms. He turned to the boy again, an unreadable emotion on his face.

Then, tearing his eyes away, he gathered his coat from a hook on the wall, plucked his pipe from its stand, and took a back door outside. 

Trevelyan stepped into the laboratory. He went to the table where the boy lay unseeing, unhearing, the table under his head wet with tears. 

“That’s you,” said Dorian, behind him. 

The rift sparked overhead. It had not been there a moment before. Trevelyan could already feel it beginning to move on.

Grabbing Dorian’s hand, he seized it, and was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

The rift spat them out. 

Trevelyan's boots clapped on the stone floor. Dorian crashed beside him, his armor clanging like pots and pans. 

As soon as they were through, Trevelyan reached up and closed the rift. 

It snapped shut with a wet, green spray. Magic splashed around them like an upset bath. Within moments, it calmed. The torches on the walls burned more brightly in the darkness, as if the tower was realer than it had been before. 

"Inquisitor?" Cassandra came running around the shelves. 

Trevelyan pushed his hood back. 

"Thank the Maker." Relief washed over her face. "You've been gone for a full day- why are you dressed like that?" 

Dorian struggled to his feet. He yanked off the Templar helm. His face was slick with sweat, his eyes widening at the sight of Cassandra. 

"Did....something happen?" she said. 

Dorian threw the helm at her.

It struck Cassandra in the nose. She clapped a hand over her face, blood pouring between her fingers.

"Wha-" 

Dorian stripped off a gauntlet and threw it at her. It struck her shoulder. He peeled off his other gauntlet and threw it, too. Cassandra ducked. Dorian yanked at his gorget, but had to slow down to uncinch its strap. 

"Stop!" Cassandra held out a hand. "What's wrong with you?" 

Dorian finally managed to get the gorget loose and flung it. He bared his teeth in fury.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with _me_?" he shouted. 

Trevelyan watched numbly as Dorian tried to tug off his breastplate. He then unlaced his own tabard with his uninjured arm and stepped out of it. Without a glance back, he left them, his feet carrying him in the direction of the red door. Dorian's shouts at Cassandra echoed off the library walls behind him:

"No, not a word! Don't ever speak to me again. Count yourself lucky I don't kill you where you stand." 

* * *

Trevelyan exited by the red door and followed the sandy path around the back of the tower. The Knight-Commander's house waited for him.

The paint had been stripped from the white picket fence. The vegetables in the garden were long gone, their metal posts rusted. The front door hung by a single hinge. 

He pushed the front door aside. The portraits had fallen from the wall, facedown now in puddles of mildew. Trevelyan stepped over them, water squishing from the rug beneath his feet. 

Moonlight shone through the laboratory's shattered glass dome. Glass and seagull feathers crunched under his boots as he went to the vivisection table in the middle of the room and touched its stained surface.

The table was cold. 

No one had lain on it in years. The rest of the lab was just as abandoned. Books sagged on shelves, turned to sludge by rain and wind. The Knight-Commander's bed had been chewed by rats, and beside it, the cage where Trevelyan had slept between experiments was rusted. 

Despite it all, the smell of pipe smoke clung to everything.

" _Empty_ ," said Trevelyan. "They were your words." 

Of course they were. Everything always came back to du Lac. Past, present, and future, there was no part of Trevelyan's life that did not owe itself to this room.

For years, he had prided himself on the words, believing they kept him sane. They were his reassurance that he was in control. He repeated them like a mantra, convinced with every repetition that he would never have to feel pain again, that he would never have to relive what had been done to him, that he could at last be free of the tower. 

But the words were just a Templar's ramblings. 

_Empty. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction_ , the Knight-Commander whispered in his mind. _Pour them out like dirty water. Who do you think you are, mage? Do you think anyone loves you? Do you think anyone cares what you feel? This tower is all you'll ever know. You are meat, you are mine, you are-_

"Nothing and no one," said Trevelyan. 

The wind whistled through the cracks in the glass dome. He was here, and he was there. The circle was complete, and the truth was clear. There was no escaping this place, not even in his mind. 

And Dorian had seen it all. 

Trevelyan felt himself dim. There was no other word for it. He went to his cage. Cradling his swollen arm against his ribs, he crawled inside and buried his face in his knees. 

Footsteps pounded down the sandy path outside. For one wild moment, he thought it was du Lac returning, until Dorian came panting into the lab. 

"Jack?" Dorian had stripped off the rest of his armor. His eyes scanned the room until they found the cage. "What are you doing?"

Trevelyan didn't answer.

Dorian knelt down in front of the cage. "Come out of there." 

Trevelyan did no such thing.

"Please," said Dorian. 

Trevelyan did not.

Dorian reached in and tried to drag him out, but Trevelyan was dead weight. Dorian made a small sound in his throat, tried harder, then gave up. He rested his brow against the cage. All the fire drained out of him, replaced with something beyond sorrow. "I am so sorry." 

"I don't want your pity," said Trevelyan.

"Pity?" Dorian's laugh was brittle. "Is that what you think I feel?" 

Dorian sat back on his knees. He took in the laboratory for the second time that day, including the surgical instruments strewn about the floor- all of them rusted now.

"I expected....something different," said Dorian. "Something terrible, but nothing like this. This place could give the Imperium a lesson on sadism. Was it always this way?"

Trevelyan didn't want to talk about the tower, but neither could he bear the silence. "No. This was du Lac's vision."

"The Knight-Commander?" asked Dorian.

"Yes. I don't know what the tower was like before, but the experiments began and ended with him." 

"Why have I never heard about this before?" 

"It's a forgotten island in the middle of the sea," said Trevelyan. "And the Seekers purged all record of this place years ago." 

"Cassandra? Leliana? How much do they know?" 

"Cassandra believes it was a rehabilitation Circle for criminal mages. Leliana's an excellent spymaster, but this place was built to keep secrets. I'm the only mage left alive who remembers what happened here, aside from you now." 

"What about Cole?" asked Dorian. 

Trevelyan lifted his head. 

"I'm not stupid," said Dorian. "He's been acting as strangely as you this entire journey." 

"I made him promise not to tell anyone," said Trevelyan. 

Dorian's leather glove creaked as he balled his fist. Trevelyan was glad Cole wasn't around to get his nose broken.

"You've truly kept this to yourself, after all these years?" 

"Yes," said Trevelyan.

Dorian shook his head in disbelief. "Then we have to tell everyone."

"Tell everyone?" said Trevelyan. "Why?" 

"What do you mean 'why'? The truth has to be told." 

"To what end?" 

"To what- because it's the right thing to do. The mages who died here deserve justice. _You_ deserve justice." 

"You don't understand," said Trevelyan. 

"I'm not saying it will be easy to spread the truth. I understand the difficulty of gaining sympathy for mages down here, despite what you may think." 

"No," said Trevelyan. "You don't."

Dorian was from Tevinter. He had grown up in a land where magic was as natural as breathing. Even in the south, he could always go home if he wanted. He had never internalized one ounce of the fear and paranoia of southern mages. The rebellion was justified to him, the Circles detestable, but in the end, they were somebody else's nightmare. Oh, he felt sorry for the rebels, the poor wretches, but sympathy was not the same as understanding. How could he begin to comprehend what it was like to be a mage under the boot of the Chantry? 

How could he understand what Trevelyan was up against? 

"Hundreds were made Tranquil in Kirkwall and no one lifted a finger. Dairsmuid was purged and no one mourned them. The Black Tower would be no different. They like it when we die, Dorian. _That's_ what you never understood." 

"Not everyone feels that way," said Dorian. "Not your friends and not me."

"Oh? And where was your righteous anger before?" said Trevelyan. "Where was all this fury when the rebels told you stories about beatings and rapes? You were content to play chess with Cullen in the garden then."

A flicker of shame passed over Dorian's face.

"You think Vivienne won't make excuses for the Templars?" said Trevelyan. "You think Josephine will condemn the Chantry, when the Inquisition relies on Orlais's patronage? You think Bull, Varric, and Sera will shed a tear for a bunch of dangerous mages who died before they could hurt normal people? They'll blame the Black Tower on ghosts, make empty gestures, and move on. Worse, they'll use it to undermine me." 

"I refuse to believe that." 

"That's because you've never had to listen to their excuses. You've never had to hear them say, it was just one Circle, it was just one Templar, it was just one bad day. I know what they're like, Dorian." 

"Then do it for yourself! Make them bear witness to what happened." 

"It won't matter." 

“You're the bloody Inquisitor. Make it matter."

Trevelyan shook his head.

"Fine. If you won't do it, I will," said Dorian, standing up. "I'll scream it from every corner of Skyhold if I have to. Starting with Cassandra. I'll rub her bloody nose in the truth and make her see-" 

_"No."_

The word was nearly demonic. Trevelyan climbed out of the cage, ignoring the pain in his arm. He was fully awake now, and his eyes burned into Dorian's. 

"You utter a word of this, and I'll send you packing. You jeopardize me as Inquisitor, and you'll be back in Tevinter before you can blink. Do you understand?" 

"Then send me away!" snarled Dorian. "I won't lie about what they did to you. You can't make me." 

"No," said Trevelyan. "But I can call you a liar."

Dorian's face went blank.

"No one will believe you," said Trevelyan. "You're the Tevinter, and I'm the Herald. All I have to do is say you're delusional, demon-plagued, and they'll eat it up. Cassandra will take my side, because she knows I'd never in a million years hide the Circle's atrocities. So go ahead. Scream it. No one will care." 

Dorian backed away from him, horrified. "Jack. Are you even listening to yourself?" 

Trevelyan said nothing.

"Don't you realize what they've done to you?" said Dorian. "You're doing exactly what the Chantry wants. You're protecting the Templars." 

"It's not that simple," he said. 

"Yes, it is," said Dorian.

No, it wasn't. Trevelyan wasn't sure how to make Dorian see. If he spoke the truth, nothing would change. Nothing had ever changed. It would just be the final insult of his life, the final proof that nothing that happened here mattered. It would be wielded as a weapon against him, proof of his weak spots, and worse, misused by those he trusted.

He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear that final betrayal. He couldn't bear the world seeing his deepest pain and telling him, once and for all, that his suffering meant nothing. 

If that meant the Templars were never punished for Ostwick, so be it. They had already gotten away with a world of crimes. He would wipe out their Order, tear down every Circle, lay every other atrocity bare, but let his own memories rest at the bottom of the sea, with the bones of all the other mages here. 

“It was a tragedy, and it will be amended as the Inquisition fights to dismantle the Circles,” said Trevelyan. “But this has to stay secret."

"You'll fight for every mage but yourself?”

“Yes,” said Trevelyan. “There’s nothing to be reclaimed for me.”

Dorian grabbed Trevelyan by the face and dug his nails into his scalp, sinking them into the scar where du Lac had cut him open.

“After everything we've been through, and you're telling me there's nothing inside you worth fighting for?” said Dorian.

Trevelyan let himself be manhandled. “Yes.”

“You’re lying.” Dorian’s nails dug deeper. “You can’t tell me that someone as fierce and hardheaded as you... _.”_

Dorian shoved him away. His face was wracked between anger, disgust, and pain. He wiped the heel of his hand hard across his cheek. “You deserve better, no matter what the Knight-Commander taught you.”

Trevelyan had nothing to say to that. He had once been a human who deserved better, before Ostwick tower. Whatever he was now was like a crude outline of a person. It was almost a relief to not hide it anymore.

"Are you going to keep your mouth shut?" asked Trevelyan. 

The answer was plain on Dorian's face. 

That wouldn't do. Trevelyan had worked too hard, and suffered too much, just to have this last loose end ruin everything. There was no threat that would make Dorian hold his tongue, but he still had one last arrow in his quiver.

"Do you want Corypheus to win?" asked Trevelyan. 

Dorian didn't answer. 

"Do you think the courts of Orlais and Fereldan would show mercy if they knew the Inquisitor was once a raped little boy driven mad by his captors? Do you think they'd be kind if they knew I was vivisected?" 

Dorian flinched at the word 'vivisected' as if it had burned him. 

"I'm not asking you to like this," said Trevelyan. "All I'm asking is that you not betray our cause. We can argue in private all you like, but this stays between us. Twenty years from now, thirty years from now, when the Inquisition is behind us, maybe then it'll be safe to speak of it. But you know better than anyone what happens to men who rise above their station. One sign of weakness, and it'll be the end of me." 

"You've never given up before-" 

"I gave up about the Black Tower a long time ago," said Trevelyan. "So I'll say this. If you ever loved me, you won't say a word." 

A war raged on Dorian's face. Anger. Sorrow. Guilt. Pride.

 _So proud_ , Trevelyan thought. _And so good_. He was asking Dorian to do the impossible, to let injustice fade quietly into nothingness, and it insulted his very nature. But he had also aimed wisely. Dorian couldn't look at him.

"This is wrong," said Dorian.

"I don't care," said Trevelyan. "Will you keep my secret?" 

Dorian's jaw clenched. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. 

Trevelyan relaxed. "Thank you. I'll tell Cassandra you need a few minutes." 

Trevelyan walked out of du Lac's lab for the last time, following the musty hallway out of the cottage. He glanced back, and saw Dorian put his head in his hands. 

* * *

Trevelyan returned to the library, where Cassandra had pulled up a chair, holding a bloody handkerchief to her nose.

"What in the Maker is the matter with him?" she asked. 

Trevelyan lit up his hand. Cassandra moved the cloth away, and he pinched the bridge of her nose. Heat rushed from his fingertips, and Cassandra gritted her teeth. The cartilage fused back together with a _crunch_. 

"Uck," said Cassandra. "Thank you."

Trevelyan sat in the chair across from her. "I've spoken with him. He won't bother you again." 

"What's wrong with him?" Cassandra wiped the dried blood off her lip. "I've never seen him behave like that. He was nearly feral." 

"The rift deposited us in another time," said Trevelyan. "We witnessed some Templars treating mages roughly. Dorian wasn't prepared for it. Seeing mages humiliated like that must've gotten under his skin." 

"Time travel? Like in Redcliffe?" 

"Exactly like Redcliffe. Only this time we went into the past instead of the future. Early Blessed Age, if the fashion was any indicator." 

"I should talk to him-" 

"I would give him space," said Trevelyan. "Let him cool down. I'd hate to have to fix your face again." 

Cassandra rubbed her nose, frowning. "What happened to your cloaks?" 

"We stole a Templar's armor to blend in," said Trevelyan. "Dorian doesn't think we broke history by knocking one man unconscious, but who knows." 

"Clearly, there's a tale to tell. But I'm glad you two are back. Waiting for you was terrible. I kept thinking, I'm going to have to tell Leliana I lost them, and...." 

If Trevelyan's mind hadn't been scoured numb by the last few hours, he would have felt sorry for her. As it was, he was merely relieved at the change of subject.

"You said we were gone for a day?" he asked. 

"Yes. The ferry came and went. I shouted to them that we needed more time, and they agreed to come back in the morning." 

"Lucky us." Trevelyan didn't relish spending another night in the tower, but with the rift gone, he felt strangely calm. For the first time, the tower truly seemed like an empty building. "Where's Cole?" 

Cassandra furrowed her brow. "I'm not sure....He said you two would be cold, but that was before you returned." 

"I'm sure he'll turn up," said Trevelyan. "It _is_ an island." 

"And one I'll be glad to be gone from," she said. "Are you hungry?" 

She offered him salted cod from her pack. Trevelyan ate without tasting it. The waves rumbled outside the tower walls, the torches flickering greasily between the shelves of the library. He forced his thoughts to remain blank, and his mind, exhausted, complied.

Not long after, footsteps echoed from the far end of the library. Cole walked toward them with a bundle in his arms.

"Are those....our cloaks?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Yes. They were waiting for you, lost for years and hours both, wrapped around each other," said Cole. 

"We left our cloaks in a storage room at the back of the tower," Trevelyan explained. "I guess no one ever found them." 

"I shook out the dust." Cole presented the bundle and bowed his head. "But the rats chewed it. I'm sorry." 

Trevelyan lifted his duster and flapped it out. It was as full of holes as a block of cheese. It stank of mildew and vermin. 

"It might still be saved," said Cassandra. "It needs cleaning and repair, but most of it is still intact. Maker, I can't believe I'm advising you on what to do with a cloak you left in a closet a century ago." 

Trevelyan inspected the duster. It was damaged, but she was right, the leather was high-quality enough that it had resisted the rot of time. It was the duster Josephine had commissioned him when he first became Inquisitor, and he found himself suddenly reluctant to part with it. 

"I'll hold onto it," he said. "Thank you, Cole." 

"You're welcome," said Cole. The spirit bit his lip, his chin trembling. "And....."

Trevelyan held his gaze, and the spirit, chin still trembling, swallowed.

"Nothing," said Cole.

Good. There were two silences he could count on. Trevelyan folded the duster as small as he could, then stuffed it into his pack on top of his dirty small clothes and half-eaten rations. Footsteps echoed, and they all turned to see Dorian enter the library. The Tevinter's head was bowed, his face streaked with runny kohl. Cole went to him.

" _Milky darkness, nuzzled deep, warm like mother's belly._ The rats liked your cloak better, because it was soft. They had babies in it-"

"Shut up," said Dorian. 

Cole's chin trembled again, and it took even greater restraint for him to bolt down whatever words were dying to escape his lips. Dorian glared at the spirit with such open hatred that Trevelyan was sure he would strike him. In the end, he took the seasilk cloak from him and unfurled it.

Dorian groaned. Decades of rat piss, shit, blood, and amniotic fluid had stained the sea silk. A mummified rat pup was tangled in a mass of chewed thread. He threw the cloak down, kicked it, then went off to his own corner, away from the rest of the group. 

"We should get some sleep," said Cassandra. 

* * *

That night, Trevelyan lay awake on the floor of the tower. 

Cassandra snored gently nearby. Cole sat on top of a bookshelf as sentry, and Dorian, apart from them all, slept alone. 

Trevelyan watched Cole out of the corner of his eye, expecting the spirit to visit him. He was strangely disappointed when he didn't. 

_Empty_ , he thought. 

All these years, he had used the words to numb himself. They had helped him survive. His emotions buzzed confused and harsh inside him now, and he wished they would go away. 

_Empty_ , he thought, hating himself. _Empty_. 

The words did their job. He refocused. The mantra the Knight-Commander had used to degrade him was still the crutch Trevelyan used to hobble through the world, because without it, he didn't know how to live. 

He stared at Cole, waiting for the spirit to tiptoe over to him and tell him what he needed to hear. 

But the spirit did not budge.

Cole kept his promise of silence. And Dorian, across the library, his back to Trevelyan, kept his promise, too. 

* * *

The next morning, they left the tower. 

Trevelyan felt a weight lift off his shoulders as soon as he stepped through the door. When they were halfway down the path, Cassandra raised her hand and smited the air. The Veil, ragged as it was, tightened its threads. 

"The Veil is still scarred here, but it will hold," said Cassandra. "Ostwick will be able to sleep easy at night now." 

Dorian made a disgusted noise. Cassandra frowned, her expression nearly as hurt as a little girl's, then turned away. 

Cole and Cassandra headed down the stairs toward the dock. As soon as they were out of earshot, Dorian said, 

"Remember when I joked that we should knock this evil thing down and drown your family in a tidal wave?" asked Dorian. 

"Yes," said Trevelyan. "I remember." 

Dorian ground his hands on the shaft of Trevelyan's staff. He had not given it back, nor had Trevelyan asked for it. Spinning it above his head, Dorian tangled lightning around the focus stone, then pointed it at the tower. 

Lightning shot from it, striking the tower head on. Stone sprayed from the impact point, and when the dust settled, a new, ugly scar shone silver on the black stone. 

"Shame," said Dorian, and started down the stairs.

* * *

The Inquisition soldiers were relieved to see them still alive. Trevelyan was curt with them, and within the hour all their belongings were packed and carried to the dock. 

The residents of Seal Rock paused in their chores to watch the Inquisitor disembark. A dingy was sent from the _Dauntless_ , and the captain greeted them, though her smile faded at her passengers' gloomy silence. The soldiers loaded their cargo into the little boat. They were rowed back to the Dauntless in silence, Trevelyan seated with his back to the town. 

He went belowdecks the moment he got onboard the ship. His room was warm and clean, and he lay in his bunk, listening to the bark of seals and the slap of the sea. 

Within the hour, they were sailing out of port. Trevelyan turned his head and watched the tower fade into the distance, until it had disappeared entirely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Real life got crazy.


	9. Chapter 9

The crows circled Skyhold's guard tower in a maelstorm of black feathers, cawing at Trevelyan on the drawbridge.

One crow dove and landed on the red hart's neck. Two more landed on her antlers. Another settled on Trevelyan's shoulder, brushing his head with its wings. 

" _Mites burrowing between feathers, gash still burning from a rusted nail. Where is the one with the warm hands?"_ said Cole.

"Needy little ingrates," said Trevelyan. 

"They missed you for other reasons," said Cole. _"Wind cold in our throats, twilight golden on our wings, our brother loves this hour."_

"They missed being spoiled." Trevelyan scratched the crow on his shoulder under its chin. The red hart tossed her head, but the birds clung to her antlers.

"I used to hate their noise and mischief, but now?" Cassandra sighed as they rode under the portcullis. "It's good to be home." 

"You sound relieved, Seeker. Was the trip wearisome for you?" asked Dorian. 

Cassandra's back tensed. She had become an expert in ignoring him, but apparently the barbs still stung. 

Not long after they had left the Black Tower, Cassandra had gone to speak with Dorian on the _Dauntless_. Dorian, with his most dazzling smile, had assured her that nothing was wrong. Nothing whatsoever. How did she come by that scar on her cheek, by the way? Was it from holding a mage down while she applied the brand of Tranquility to their forehead? Or from ripping a mage child away from its parents? She left him alone after that, but Dorian did not leave _her_ alone.

There was nothing she could do to escape him. If she went abovedeck on the _Dauntless_ for a breath of fresh air, Dorian would be there, musing about how many mages must have thrown themselves from the top of the Black Tower throughout its long history. If she sharpened her sword in the open, Dorian would lean over her shoulder, asking about the proper way to clip a mage's head from their shoulders during a Rite of Annulment. If she brushed down her horse at camp at night, he would make sure to brush down the bog unicorn next to her, until its stench drove her away. 

In any other scenario, Cassandra would have defended herself against such a passive-aggressive onslaught....but something in Dorian's actions brought out her guilt. 

It made for awkward travel. If Dorian ever made eye contact with Trevelyan, his face would crinkle with pain, then anger, before turning away. As with their trip to Ostwick, he and Dorian kept their bitter silence. 

But Cassandra was right, he told himself, the red hart bellowing as she strode into the yard. It was over. They were home.

A trumpet blew steam into the mountain air. Servants bowed, and a squire ran forward to grab the red hart's reins. Josephine stepped forward to greet them.

"Welcome home, Herald." Josephine curtsied. "I hope you had- what are you wearing?"

The captain of the _Dauntless_ had given Trevelyan a sealskin parka to replace his damaged duster. Dorian had likewise been given a frumpy travel cloak by one of the Inquisition soldiers, which did nothing to improve his mood. 

"We had a small mix-up in the tower." Trevelyan shooed the crow off his shoulder. He waited for a squire to put down a step for him, then dismounted gingerly, cradling his arm.

"Are you injured?" said Josephine.

"Dislocated my shoulder. It just needs time." His left arm was still stiff, but he had been massaging it with healing spells every night. The joint was slowly, grudgingly mending. "You can read all about it in my report."

"I'd much rather hear it from you," she said. "We're waiting for you in the war room." 

"Let me change first." Trevelyan took his pack from the squire who had pulled it off his saddle. "This parka smells like a seal's arse."

"I had chosen not to notice," she said.

Her attention drifted to his companions. Cassandra had taken her horse to the far end of the yard, well away from Dorian. Dorian, having dismounted, pulled Trevelyan's staff from the back of the bog unicorn with a dark expression on his face. Cole sat aback his drackolisk, gazing forlornly between them. 

"Is everything all right?" she said. 

"It was....a strained trip. Dorian and I are no longer together," said Trevelyan. 

Josephine covered her mouth with her hand.

Trevelyan laughed. "It's all right, Josie." He hadn't expected such a strong reaction. "Some things aren't meant to last." 

Josephine touched his arm, remembered his injury, then moved her hand to his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I know you two were.....I had hoped....." 

"We worked it out in Ostwick," said Trevelyan. "Trust me, it's all behind us." 

Dorian thrust Trevelyan's staff at a squire without looking at it. 

"I...understand," she said. "Still, I'm sorry." 

"Don't be. Now, I believe Cassandra has her own report to give you." 

Josephine took the hint. He waited for her to be out of sight before he glanced sidelong. He was both relieved and uneasy to see Dorian heading in the direction of the tavern. It was a bit early to start drinking in Trevelyan's opinion, but Dorian apparently had a thirst that couldn't wait. He started for the great hall and nearly ran into Cole.

"You startled me," he said. 

Cole peered up at him from under the brim of his hat. "Like a knife you can't yank out, only it's in his ribs now, too. It hurts more, not less." 

There was a note of menace in the spirit's voice. Cole had been mostly silent on their return journey, to the point that it was easy to forget he was there. 

"Is there something you want to say?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Yes, but you made me promise not to," said Cole.

"Then you should keep your promise."

The spirit bowed his head. Then he vanished, the grass springing up from where his feet had been. 

* * *

Climbing his tower, Trevelyan endured the crows' scolding. They had missed him, but not all of them were sweet about it. 

One landed on his shoulder, then another. Both pecked at his ears.

"Keep it up," he said, "and I'll rescind my policy on no cats in the castle."

They flapped back to their nests.

Stepping into his bedroom, he brushed the bird dander off himself and sighed deeply. A fire had been lit for him, and he was pleased to see the water basin had been filled.

His pack weighed heavily on his good shoulder. He knew he should pull out all the missives and maps and coins he had shoved into it.

Instead, he did what he always did: threw it in the corner.

He skinned off the sealskin parka and tossed it into the wardrobe. He needed a bath, and a meal, and a nap, but his advisors were waiting for him. Grimacing, he pulled on a simple black tunic, careful of his arm, then washed his face in the basin. 

It was strange, knowing Dorian wasn't coming. 

Usually, the Tevinter would find a reason to visit Trevelyan in his quarters after he returned from a mission. Even if he had been with Trevelyan in the field, the prospect of sharing a warm bath and a soft bed was too tempting to resist. Dorian would swan up the stairs, dispel the ward on his door, and enter the bedroom with a yawn, as if he just happened to be passing through. If Trevelyan was running late for a meeting, Dorian would make sure he was even later. 

That was over, he realized. They would never bathe together, or share a bed, or talk deep into the night with each other ever again. 

_Empty_ , the Knight-Commander whispered.

Trevelyan forced his face into the basin and held it underwater until his lungs burned. Then he reared up, patted his face with a towel, and went downstairs. 

* * *

"I can't believe you traveled through time _again,_ " said Cullen.

Trevelyan sipped his tea. The mission reports were stacked neatly on the war table. "Try not to spread it around. I'm still being pestered by scholars who want an interview about the first time."

"The implications are quite disturbing," said Josephine. "There's no telling how many of these time rifts are in the world, or what damage they might be causing."

"Dorian thinks it's unlikely that the rifts will alter history," said Trevelyan. "He used bigger words, but his theory boiled down to the past being done and us probably having nothing to worry about."

"Probably," said Cullen. 

"It's a good thing he was with you," said Josephine. "And a remarkable coincidence. What are the odds of the pair of you tumbling through time not once but twice? I shudder to think what might have happened to you had he not been at your side."

"How are you feeling?" said Leliana. 

"Other than a sore shoulder, fine," said Trevelyan. "It was unpleasant, but it's over."

"And Dorian?" said Leliana. "Cassandra's report mentioned she had an altercation with him after your return."

Trevelyan had gone over all his companions' reports on the road, and knew exactly how Cassandra had described the "altercation." She had been surprisingly vague and generous, noting that Dorian may have been traumatized by what he witnessed in the past and that needed time to recover. She made no mention of him breaking her nose.

"We saw some of the tower's uglier history," said Trevelyan. "I'm not sure he knows how to deal with what he saw." 

"Dorian isn't easily rattled," said Cullen. "Was this 'ugly history' that bad?" 

"It was a Templar hurting a mage," said Trevelyan. "Would you like me to rate it on a scale of awfulness for you?" 

"No, I...." Cullen grimaced. "It just seems unlike him to take his anger out on a friend."

"I don't know what was going through his head at the time," said Trevelyan.

"But you two are together," said Cullen. "Didn't he confide in you?"

Josephine kept writing on her slate. She had apparently kept that bit of gossip to herself.

"Actually, he and I are no longer together," said Trevelyan.

"Oh." Cullen's face fell. If Trevelyan didn't know any better, he sounded disappointed. "I'm....sorry to hear that."

"If I may ask, what ended the relationship?" asked Leliana.

"Is it any of your concern?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Given that your enemies may use it against you, yes. We all know you didn't want to return to the Black Tower. Was the strain of the mission the reason why things ended?" 

"Leliana," said Josephine. "Must you pry?" 

"I would be negligent in my duty if I did not," said Leliana. 

_Empty_ , whispered the Knight-Commander. _Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Pour them out like dirty water. Do you want her to think you're incapable? Unstable? They'll steal your power in a heartbeat if you let them._

"We ended things before we even got to the tower," said Trevelyan. "And I'll thank you to leave it at that." 

Leliana studied him. No doubt her agents would get back to her with a thousand tiny details that gave her a better picture of what happened, but she would get no more from his lips. "Very well," she said. "It's unfortunate that it coincided with what sounds like an already difficult journey." 

"Poor Dorian," said Cullen, as if Trevelyan was not there. "I should go talk to him after this." 

"I recommend giving him space," said Trevelyan. "The last thing he needs to be reminded of right now is anything, or anyone, having to do with the Circle." 

"That's....probably true," said Cullen. 

"In any case," said Trevelyan, changing the subject, "the Veil is mended. We sent a messenger to the merchant guilds of Ostwick telling them that they can resume sea trade without fear." 

"Our agents have likewise been hard at work securing alliances with the major factions in the city," said Leliana. "We should be receiving ravens soon." 

"House Delamare and House Iskander are the noble families we should focus on the most," said Josephine. "They have the swiftest trade vessels in Ostwick and already look favorably upon the Inquisition." 

"House Trevelyan will threaten some of the minor houses to reject us, but our people will be there to threaten back," said Cullen. 

"We'll push the right narrative," said Josephine. "House Trevelyan might rule Ostwick, but you achieved what they could not. The people will know who to thank when they tuck in their children at night. Well done, Inquisitor." 

"I'm glad it's over," said Trevelyan. "We can look forward to the Winter Palace now." 

"I'd rather deal with demons," sighed Cullen. 

The rest of the meeting ran smoothly. Cullen read reports from the Exalted Plains, Leliana updated him about a brewing coup in Hunter Fell, and Josephine summarized the latest gossip from court. They chatted about the style of their uniforms for the Winter Palace, Cullen crinkling his nose the entire time like a little boy forced to eat vegetables, and it slowly dawned on Trevelyan: 

It was really over. Ostwick Circle was behind him once and for all. 

"Are we adjourned?" asked Trevelyan, when the shadows had stretched across the floor.

"Yes, I believe so," said Josephine. "Thank you for your patience, Inquisitor. We realize you must be exhausted from your journey." 

"You could use a bath," said Leliana. 

"I appreciate your directness as always, Sister Nightingale." Trevelyan set his cup on the table. "Can you arrange it, Josie?" 

"Of course. Will you be joining us for dinner, or do you wish to turn in early?" asked Josephine. 

Trevelyan wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, but the Inquisitor had been gone for two weeks. He needed to remind the court of his presence. "I'll be there. It's not lamb again, is it?" 

"Rabbit," said Cullen.

Trevelyan couldn't complain. "Dismissed." 

As he went for the door, Josephine said, "Oh! There is one more small matter."

"Yes?" asked Trevelyan.

"Lord Belanger of Val Chevin has pledged his youngest son to serve the Inquisition. Ser Erik arrived last night with his entourage, along with a donation of arms, armor, and horses for our cause," said Josephine.

"And?" said Trevelyan.

"The man was a Templar at the Circle of Val Chevin for many years," said Josephine. "He was highly respected there and came with glowing recommendations."

" _And_?" said Trevelyan.

"And you told me to inform you of the comings and goings of all Templars in Skyhold," said Josephine. "Ser Erik has a boisterous personality, and has spent most of his day in the tavern with his friends. I have advised him, gently, that the Inquisitor is a busy man who dislikes disruptions to his schedule. He should not bother you during his time here."

"He'll be shipped out to the Plains next week," said Cullen. "We could use a man of his skill there."

 _And may the demons eat him alive._ "Thank you for telling me," said Trevelyan.

"We're glad you're back, Inquisitor." Josephine bit her lip. "And....we thank you for all that you've suffered to protect Thedas." 

Trevelyan met her eyes levelly. "Noted."

* * *

Dinner was hot and humid.

A minstrel troupe played Orlesian ballads near the sweltering fireplace. Dogs tore at bones under the tables. The beer flowed, until the roar from the commons made it necessary to shout over the din.

The rabbit was as tough as the lamb had been. Dessert, however, was a butterscotch-apple crumble drizzled with walnut toffee: Trevelyan's favorite. 

"Your doing?" he asked Josephine, digging his fork into the warm pastry. 

"We do what we can to spoil you," she said. 

"Who knew fighting demons yielded such high rewards," he said, but closed his eyes as he slid the fork into his mouth. 

"Well?" she said. 

"I may have to loosen my belt tonight," he said. 

"I'll give your compliments to the patissier."

It _was_ good pastry. He let himself enjoy it, roving his eyes over the great hall. Neither Cassandra nor Dorian had come to dinner. Cole was absent as well, though that wasn't unusual. Trevelyan wondered how long it would take for things to go back to normal. _If_ things would go back to normal.

Sera waved at him from the throng. Blackwall hovered a hand over her waist, grimacing at the way she leaned back on the bench. Solas scowled at her and moved his plate away, while Bull chuckled over his beer. Varric didn't have his journal for once and was snapping his fingers at a server carrying ale.

"You should visit them before you turn in," said Josephine. "They missed you."

"Did they?" said Trevelyan.

Josephine's smile wavered. "Of course, Jack. They're your friends." 

Trevelyan wasn't so sure. Friendship was built on vulnerability, and that was all but impossible for him. 

But by then Sera was waving both hands. 

"Thank you, Lady Montilyet," he said. "I think I will say hello." 

He rose and the great hall rose with him. Waving them back down, he made his way to his companions' table. Sera scooted to make room between herself and Blackwall. 

"There he is," said Blackwall, as Trevelyan swung his leg over the bench. "The icy prince deigned to step off his throne and drink with the rabble."

"I can always go back," said Trevelyan. 

"No, no, we're glad you could spare us a moment," said Blackwall. "Elusive as the golden halla, this one, eh Solas?" 

"I'll thank you not to mention that again," said Solas. 

Trevelyan winced in sympathy. "How's your leg?" 

"It is better, thank you," said Solas. "The price of joining the Inquisition is chasing after Dalish livestock on occasion, with all the hazards that entails." 

"No one made you run after it," said Blackwall. "There were other options." 

"Halla are hardy but skittish animals. My intent was to startle her into running back in the direction of the Dalish camp rather than risk injury to her by using binding magic," said Solas. "Alas, the ground had other ideas." 

"It was pretty funny," said Bull. "Aside from the bone poking out of your shin." 

"How fortunate that I had a large and noble companion to carry me," said Solas. "If only his tongue was as practiced at courtesy as his other muscles are at swinging battleaxes." 

"My tongue gets plenty of practice, thanks," said Bull. 

Trevelyan felt himself relax. The last two weeks had been such a crucible of pain and anger that he had forgotten what it was like to hear friendly banter. "I'm glad it healed properly." 

Solas smiled. "I will be happy to accompany you into the field next time, Inquisitor. I admit, I would have liked to explore the Fade around Ostwick for myself. I heard the Qunari attacked the city in the Storm Age, and that the Ostwickers repelled them mightily. That was the impetus for the construction of the double wall, correct?"

"Yes," said Trevelyan. "They say it's one of the architectural marvels of the modern world."

"Thousands upon thousands of stones, each engraven with hundreds of enchantments. An incalculable effort, but the Qunari's gaatlok canons must have made an impression," said Solas.

"It's even more incredible when you consider that each enchantment was also calibrated to resist temperature fluctuations of well over a thousand degrees. They needed to make sure the Qunari wouldn't use sarabaas to superheat and then crack-freeze the stone like they did at the Battle of White Cliffs."

"Is it true that the enchantments were reverse-coiled to include anti-acidic properties?" asked Solas.

"The rain will fall on those stones for a million years and never erode them. In fact, my great-great-great-great grandfather was actually the one who-" 

"Uck, bored," said Sera. 

"I'm with her. Took all of five minutes for you two to start talking over everyone's heads, so you mind dumbing it down for the rest of us?" asked Blackwall. 

"Yeah, tell us about how Ostwickers roll wheels of cheese down hills instead," said Varric.

"We only do that on festival days," said Trevelyan.

"That and fuck sheep," said Sera. 

Trevelyan swatted Sera gently on the arm. She retaliated by putting a foot in his ribs and shoving him into Blackwall. Trevelyan's shoulder connected, and he flinched. 

"I didn't even kick you that hard!" said Sera.

"It's not you." Trevelyan massaged his shoulder. The ache spread like needles down into the joint. "The rift tore up my arm." 

"Oh?" said Solas. "How so?" 

Trevelyan warmed the sore muscles with heat. They would find out sooner or later, if not from him, then from his travel companions. There seemed little point in hiding it. He summarized their adventure as best he could, leaving out the obvious parts. It spoke to how inured they were against the weird that no one blinked an eye at the words "time travel." 

"You knocked out a Templar and stole his armor?" asked Varric. "You know there's an entire genre of fiction about how rewriting history is a bad idea, right?" 

"Dorian didn't think it mattered," said Trevelyan. "According to him, the past can't be changed. What's done is done."

Solas opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

"No offense boss, but I'm glad you didn't take me on this one," said Bull. 

"Same," said Sera.

"Ditto," said Varric. 

"Considering you lot rode through the gate this afternoon sulking like you just came back from a funeral, I'll have to agree with them. What a nightmare," said Blackwall. 

"That's certainly one way to describe it," said Trevelyan.

"Was there uh....anything else that happened?" asked Varric. "I mean, other than the rift. I heard things were a little tense..." 

Trevelyan didn't bother to ask who told him that. Skyhold was a rumor mill. "We saw a Templar roughing up a mage in the past. We couldn't intervene without revealing ourselves, so we had to stand by and watch. Dorian was upset, and took his anger out on Cassandra when we got back. The two of them are currently not on speaking terms." 

Varric whistled. "Wow. Didn't know Sparkler had it in him."

"Why take it out on Cassandra?" asked Blackwall. "She had nothing to do with it." 

The question was so galling that Trevelyan was unsure how to answer at first. Cassandra might not have had a hand in the daily abuses that happened in the Circles, but she oversaw those who did. The connection was obvious. Trevelyan had to remind himself that most people didn't understand how the Circle worked, let alone dedicated years to deciphering its hypocrisies. "She was the closest thing to a Templar nearby. Maybe that was all the provocation he needed." 

"Weird," said Sera.

"Sounds like he was working through something," said Bull.

"It would certainly explain why he's been drinking himself blind," said Blackwall. 

"What?" said Trevelyan. 

"The big guy's still at the tavern. Didn't you know?" said Bull. 

"I knew he went there hours ago," said Trevelyan. "He's still at it?" 

"Like he's trying to drown bad memories." The Qunari's sharp eye moved over Trevelyan's face, noting its tiny twitches. "Been awhile since he did that."

Trevelyan didn't respond. The last time Dorian went off the deep end was after the incident with his father. The Tevinter often drank hard, but there was a marked difference between his merrymaking involving wine and his deep, black binges involving ale. Dorian could laugh all night long on the former. With the latter, he was dangerous. That he had been in the tavern for hours...

"He was picking a fight with a Templar the last time I saw him," said Blackwall, bringing him out of his fugue. 

"Which one?" asked Trevelyan.

"Some popinjay," said Blackwall. "The Templar didn't take him seriously, but I was worried for awhile. Dorian looked like he wanted to set him on fire." 

"One of our Templars?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Nah, didn't recognize this one. Orlesian, from his accent. Had his father's standard on his tunic, just in case anyone forgot whose coin purse he spilled out of," said Blackwall. "Val Chevin, I think." 

That had to be Ser Erik. There weren't enough Templars in the Inquisition for it to be anyone else.

"Can one of you go check on him?" asked Trevelyan. 

"One of us? Why not you?" said Varric. 

Trevelyan was beginning to sense a pattern to his day. "He and I are currently not on speaking terms either." 

"What? You're _mad_ he got in a fight with Cassandra?" asked Varric.

"No, we're no longer together." 

The table went silent. Varric, who mostly pretended to like Trevelyan, frowned as if he'd just been told his dog was dead. Bull grimaced. Blackwall said, "oh" at the same moment Sera said, " _no_." Only Solas failed to show disappointment, but then again he had never approved of the relationship.

"But....why?" asked Sera. 

They were all staring. He could feel their interest pressing on him, digging its fingers into his tenderest points. 

_Empty_ , whispered the Knight-Commander. _Their sympathy is nothing but lies. You could tell them every single thing I did to you, and they'd still make excuses. So empty. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Pour them out like dirty water. Pour out love, friendship, and trust. Empty, empty, empty._

"I think I'll turn in." Trevelyan rose. "Please, if one of you could make sure he doesn't drown himself, I'd appreciate it."

"You sure?" asked Blackwall.

"Yes." 

They murmured goodnights. Blackwall patted him on the back. As he came around the table, Solas gently caught his sleeve.

"Should you need to talk, Inquisitor..."

Trevelyan gave him a tight smile and pried off his fingers. 

"It's late, Solas," he said. _Too late._

He left him and the others. The muffling of the great hall as he shut his tower door behind him was like a cold compress. 

* * *

Trevelyan spent the hour before bed catching up on reports. He signed every paper that needed signing, and sealed with wax every letter that needed sealing. He massaged his shoulder with deep, pulsing heat, hissing as the tissue burned. When at last he could think of nothing else to do, he changed into his nightshirt, blew out the candles, and slid into his great empty bed. A handful of crows murmured in the rafters, cuddling against each other for warmth. Embers popped in the fireplace. He drifted downward into sleep. 

The air shifted. 

Trevelyan opened his eyes. Cole sat on the sofa. 

"You said friends don't hurt each other, not on purpose," said Cole.

"I did," said Trevelyan. 

"And....I agreed to keep quiet, because we're friends, and I didn't want to hurt you," said Cole. 

"You did very well. I can't thank you enough for keeping my secret," said Trevelyan. 

Cole lifted his chin. "I don't want to keep secrets anymore." 

Trevelyan took a deep breath. "We all must do things we dislike sometimes-" 

"No." Cole's words cut the air like a knife. "Friends don't hurt each other, not on purpose, but not talking about it hurts you more." 

Cole began to pace, wringing his hands. 

"Festering, a wound deep down, needs to be lanced. You think hiding it keeps you safe, like a cage keeps you safe, but it's still a cage. Trapped, trapped, trapped. Trapped in a cage for a child, too small, can't move, bones misshapen, heart weak, muscles slack. Afraid sunlight will hurt after years in the dark, afraid to fall after years without walking, afraid, afraid, because it might hurt, and it _will_ hurt-"

Trevelyan threw back the covers. "Cole-"

"No," Cole shouted.

Trevelyan froze. 

" _Empty, empty, empty_ ," said Cole. "Those were his words, so why do you use them?" 

Trevelyan said nothing. It was a question he had asked himself a thousand times on the road. 

"He told you that you were worthless, so why do you believe him? He told you that you weren't a person, so why do you treat yourself like you're not? He told you that your feelings don't matter, so why do you keep throwing them away?" asked Cole.

"I'd change if I could, Cole," said Trevelyan. "But I can't. I've tried. What they did to me can't be undone-" 

"They're dead," said Cole. "They're gone, but you picked up their tools. Why?" 

The spirit's voice cracked.

"They buried you, but you won't let anyone dig you out," said Cole. 

"That's not true," snapped Trevelyan, anger shooting through him like a jagged red line. "Every single person in this castle would either see me dead, or Tranquil, or shoved back in a hole if they could. I don't care if I'm alone. I don't care if I don't feel anything. I won't help them betray me like everyone else has betrayed me."

Cole hunkered away from him like a wary dog. "I never betrayed you." 

Trevelyan caught himself. He couldn't argue with that. 

"Dorian never betrayed you, either," said Cole.

Trevelyan was silent. 

"He hurts for you," said Cole. "And he understands. He's sorry he pushed you. He thinks of his father, and how his father taught him to distrust everyone. But then he told you, and it made it better. He just wants you to know that not everyone is your Knight-Commander. He just wanted to help-"

"Are you going to rat me out, Cole?" 

Cole was silent for a long time. "No."

The spirit went to the balcony doors and opened them. He stepped into the cold night air. Trevelyan felt the strange pressure that always came right before the spirit vanished. 

Something occurred to him. 

"Cole?" asked Trevelyan. "You said that you made me forget once before. That I didn't want to listen to you. What did you tell me back then?" 

"Everything I just told you now," said Cole. "It didn't help then, either." 

And then the spirit was gone. Trevelyan stood there, the night breeze stirring his nightdress and somersaulting pieces of parchment off his desk. He went to the glass doors, closed and warded them, then slid back into bed. He stared up at the dark ceiling alone, like a dead man in his grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a transition chapter. But we're in the home stretch!


	10. Chapter 10

He didn't make it to the rookery this time.

The Templars grabbed him off the ladder with mailed fists and carried him kicking and screaming downstairs. They ripped his clothes off, threw him on the Knight-Commander's table, and strapped down his wrists and ankles. A wooden bar was forced between his teeth. 

As soon as he was secure, the Templars began to wash his naked flesh, chatting about what they would have for dinner. More faces appeared above him. His mother, father, and brothers. 

_I'm sorry,_ he tried to tell them. 

His advisors appeared next. They stared down at him as if he was meat on a plate.

 _I'll be good_ , he promised them. _I'll be good this time. Please don't do this to me._

His companions gathered around. Not one lifted a finger to free him. 

_I'm just-_ Was he nine years old, twelve, or sixteen? He wasn't sure.

It didn't matter. The Knight-Commander pushed through them all. He forced Trevelyan's head to the side, sketched a design with a blunt finger, then plunged cold steel into flesh until it met bone. 

* * *

A knock on the bedroom door yanked Trevelyan out of his dream. 

He tied his robe slowly with his good hand and went downstairs. The moment he lowered the wards on the door, Josephine and Leliana barged in. 

Trevelyan shut the door behind them. "Ladies." 

"This is a disaster," said Josephine. "His father will demand blood for this insult."

"Then we best placate the son before it reaches him," said Leliana.

Trevelyan followed them up the steps. "Did something happen?" 

Josephine rounded on him, incredulous. 

"What?" said Trevelyan. 

Josephine threw her arms down. She looked around the room from the sofa covered in papers to the bed and opted to stand. "Early this morning, Lieutenant Briggs of the castle guard received word that there was a disturbance in the training yard. Apparently, a Templar was injured by his sparring partner. The man's hand was mangled-- badly enough to discipline whoever had done it to him. The lieutenant went to the yard and found healers tending to Ser Erik of Val Chevin. Naturally, the lieutenant was outraged. The extent of the injury flew in the face of all the Inquisition's rules on weapons training." 

"How bad was it really?" asked Trevelyan.

"Ser Erik will never wield a sword again," said Leliana. "Not unless he trains himself to fight with his left hand."

"Who did it to him?" asked Trevelyan. 

"That's the best part," said Josephine. "Ser Erik named Dorian as the culprit." 

The room blurred in Trevelyan's vision. 

"The lieutenant found Dorian in the practice yard and demanded an explanation. Dorian told him that Ser Erik had been 'existing smugly.' Lieutenant Briggs wasn't sure what to do, given that Dorian is, or rather was, your paramour, so he sent a runner to get Cullen. Cullen arrived and told Dorian to wait in his quarters. Dorian said he would, if the Commander could beat him in combat." 

Trevelyan sat down on the bed. 

"Cullen tried to talk him down, and at some point Dorian ended up backhanding him across the face," said Josephine. 

"What?" said Trevelyan. 

"Oh, now you are awake," said Josephine. "Not only did he slap the commander of the Inquisition's forces in public, but he might have done worse had Cullen not ordered his men to take him into custody. Gently, I might add." 

There had been warning signs that something vicious was brewing inside Dorian, but Trevelyan never imagined him doing anything this foolish. "Was he drunk?" 

"No," said Leliana. 

"Provoked?" asked Trevelyan. 

"According to eyewitnesses, Ser Erik merely greeted him in the yard this morning," said Leliana. "The two had an argument in the tavern last night, and Ser Erik offered to settle their disagreement with a friendly bout. Instead, Dorian crippled him for life."

"I simply cannot comprehend his behavior," said Josephine. "Dorian has always been so mindful of the Inquisition's image. Now, he's sitting in a holding cell, refusing to explain his actions." 

Trevelyan rubbed his face.

"Do you have any insight into his motivations?" Leliana asked. 

"No," said Trevelyan. 

"Are you certain?" she asked, harshly. "Because it seems to me that he's created a diplomatic incident as a result of whatever happened to you two in Ostwick." 

_Empty_ , whispered the Knight-Commander. 

"It's possible," said Trevelyan.

"That's all you have to say?" said Leliana. 

"I'm not a mind reader, Sister Nightingale," said Trevelyan. "I can't speak for his actions." 

"Well, Dorian will need a better defense than that," said Josephine. "Ser Erik has demanded a judgment." 

"You must be joking," said Trevelyan. 

"Oh, believe me, he is more than serious," said Josephine. 

"Then start a rumor that he attacked Dorian first," said Trevelyan. "Defame him. Bribe him. Threaten to break his other hand if he doesn't drop the issue." 

"If the altercation had happened in private, that might be an option," said Leliana. "As it stands, Dorian attacked two men in public, including his own commander." 

Trevelyan shook his head. He couldn't put Dorian on trial in front of Skyhold. Not when he might blurt out the truth to defend himself. "There has to be another way." 

"He made an unfortunate enemy," said Leliana. "Ser Erik's father is the favorite cousin of Comte Lothair Doucy of the Council of Heralds. Should we lose his approval, it will weaken our ability to influence the Orlesian court." 

"In short, this incident may very well tip the scales at the Winter Palace," said Josephine.

Trevelyan stood and went to the fireplace.

"Ser Erik was angry when we spoke, but unlike his father, he is tractable," said Josephine. "If Dorian makes a public apology, he might be persuaded to back down." 

An ember popped in the fire. Trevelyan tried to imagine which was worse: the dark future he had seen in Redcliffe, or Dorian confessing to the entire court that he had seen the Inquisitor vivisected as a boy. All of Trevelyan's hard-earned mystique would crumble like dust. No one would ever respect him again. 

Trusting Dorian to bury the truth about the Black Tower had been a mistake. Because Dorian wasn't a man who could walk away from injustice. Dorian, who had crossed the world to stop Alexius, who had stayed with the Inquisition to prove that there was at least one good Tevinter, simply didn't have it in him to quit. 

And deep down, Trevelyan knew he wouldn't run away from this fight anymore than he had any of the others. He wouldn't let himself be punished for nothing. All he needed to do to absolve himself was say that the Inquisitor had shown him horrors, and that his actions had been motivated by justice. 

Unless Trevelyan prevented him from doing so.

He had warned Dorian in the tower that he would declare him a liar if necessary. It would take little to convince the faithful that Dorian's mind had been broken by demons in Ostwick. He would become the mad, depraved, dangerous mage they always believed him to be. And then it wouldn't matter what Dorian said. No one would believe him. 

So be it. 

_Empty_ , said the Knight-Commander, and all his emotions poured out like dirty water. 

"We simply need Dorian to cooperate," said Leliana. 

"Though from the way he has been acting, perhaps that is asking too much of him," said Josephine. 

"The important thing is that we neutralize the situation before the Winter Palace," said Trevelyan, rubbing his sore shoulder. "We can't risk Empress Celene's life over this folly. Brief Dorian on what's going to happen and persuade him to go along with it."

"Agreed. I recommend holding the judgement this afternoon," said Leliana. "The longer we drag it out, the more notoriety it will gain. Better to get it over with quickly, at a time when most of the castle will still be tending to their duties."

"And while Ser Erik is still relatively drugged with healing potions," said Josephine. 

"Get to it then," said Trevelyan. 

* * *

It was decided that Trevelyan would sit in judgement on two smaller matters before he dealt with Dorian and Ser Erik. That way, it would appear as if the incident was just one of many that weighed on the Inquisitor's mind.

The first involved a squire accused of stealing, the second a merchant whose herbal remedies had made several of her customers sick. It was hard for Trevelyan to pay attention to either. The great hall was fuller than it should have been, with nobles who otherwise would have been milling in the garden now packed in the gallery. Word had gotten out about the morning's drama, and everyone at Skyhold wanted to see how the Inquisitor would deal with his pet Tevinter. 

Sera and Blackwall leaned on the balcony railing at the back of the great hall. Vivienne sat in a velvet chair beside them, smoking a cigarette in a long, golden holder. Bull, Varric, and Solas were scattered in the crowd. Trevelyan wondered what they'd heard. Their faces were too far for him to read. Cullen stood at the bottom of the dais in his customary spot. His cheek had a shiny purple bruise with a cut in the middle of it, no doubt from a ring. Far from vindictive, he looked heartsick, as if he couldn't comprehend how it had come to this. 

The longer he scanned the crowd, the more Trevelyan's palms prickled. His throne was his seat of power, but he could just as easily imagine these people dragging him off it. Everything depended on him denouncing Dorian before he could speak the truth. 

"Inquisitor?" asked Lady Montilyet. 

He hadn't noticed the potion seller being led away.

"Is there any other business, Lady Montilyet?" he said. 

"There is one more matter on the docket," said Josephine. "Lord Erik Belanger of Val Chevin brings his grievances against Lord Dorian Pavus most recently of Minrathous." 

Ser Erik stepped forward from the crowd. He was tall and muscled with a face like a prince. A sling supported his splinted arm. His eyes were glazed with pain, but his mouth was set in a hard line. 

There were murmurs. From the back of the hall, two guards escorted Dorian slowly down the aisle. Dorian's gait was strangely shuffling. 

Trevelyan inhaled sharply.

Dorian and the two guards reached the foot of the dais, the murmurs building to a fever-pitch. Dorians' face was covered in black bruises, his lip split. Trevelyan glanced at Josephine and Leliana, and could tell by their expressions that neither of them knew who had done this. The sparring with Ser Erik had not been violent before Dorian crippled him, so how....? 

Ser Erik's friends? A prison guard with a grudge? Cullen was whispering to a soldier, who slipped through the crowd and out a back door. Trevelyan controlled his face. He couldn't show confusion or doubt. The last thing they needed was the court whispering about more insubordination in the ranks. Whoever had done this would pay, but later. 

Josephine took the hint and proceeded. 

"Ser Erik, what grievances do you bring before the Inquisitor?" asked Josephine.

"I came to Skyhold only two days ago to pledge my allegiance. I swore on my sword that I would serve you faithfully, Inquisitor, against the Venatori scourge and the traitorous Red Templars. Now, I find myself maimed. That my attacker is a confidante of yours fills me with great dread." 

"If you could," said Josephine, gently, "start from the beginning." 

Ser Erik nodded. "My men and I were in the tavern last night. We were talking amongst ourselves, when I noticed a mage staring at me from the bar. He eventually came over and began to berate me." 

"Berate you how?" asked Josephine.

"He accused me and my friends of having abused mages under our charge. I assured him that the opposite was true. During my time in the Val Chevin Circle, I protected my wards to the best of my ability, as did my brothers and sisters in arms. We protected them even as other Templars rose up against the Chantry in a pointless war."

"And how did Lord Pavus respond?" asked Josephine. 

"He called me a liar. He said if I cared so much about the mages under my command, I would have let them see their families, not forced them to undergo harrowings, that sort of thing. I told him that none of that mattered anymore, that we all served the Inquisition now. He said it did matter. The past always matters." 

Trevelyan glanced at Dorian. The Tevinter kept his attention on the floor. 

"He tried to goad me into a fight, but I refused," said Ser Erik. "After a time, we decided it best to leave. It was late, and I didn't want to make an ill-impression on the Inquisitor by injuring his friend." 

"Did you do or say anything to Lord Pavus that might have provoked him or impugned his honor?" asked Josephine.

"No," said Ser Erik. 

"And Lord Pavus," said Josephine. "What say you about the events described?" 

Dorian said nothing. 

"Lord Pavus?" asked Josephine. "Do you wish to share your version of events?" 

No answer.

The murmurs of the great hall buzzed louder and louder. If Josephine was nonplussed by his behavior, she did not show it. "Noted. Ser Belanger, what happened the next day?" 

"The next day, I rose to practice with my men in the training yard. The mage was there. I asked him how his head was, given how soaked he'd been the night before. He said he was fresh as a daisy. Then he asked me if I wanted to spar." 

"Did you sense any ill-intent in the request?" asked Josephine.

"No. He seemed eager, but sober. I took up my practice sword, and we bandied about the ring. No magic, no smites. Just melee with his staff and my sword."

"And when did that change?" asked Josephine.

"Suddenly," said Ser Erik. "I thought I sensed a weakness in his flank, so I went for a back swipe. It was a trick. He struck my wrist and did this to it- look." 

Ser Erik lifted his hand for the crowd to see. Gasps and outraged cries rang through the hall. His hand, splinted between two pieces of wood, was a purple, swollen balloon. 

"Lord Pavus, what say you in your defense?" asked Josephine. 

And still, Dorian said nothing. 

"My father and I believe in your mission, and this is how we are repaid?" said Ser Erik. "I will never wield a sword in this hand again. My trade and honor, gone. To say that Val Chevin's faith in the Inquisition has been shaken would be a grim understatement."

"Thank you, Ser Erik," said Josephine. "Does Lord Pavus have _anything_ to say in his defense?" 

At last, Dorian lifted his head. 

"I have only this to say," said Dorian. "Last week, I accompanied the Inquisitor to the Black Tower of Ostwick. We encountered an aberrant rift there, one that carried us back into the tower's past." 

Trevelyan's heart began to pound. He waited for the right moment. 

"While we were there, I saw a Templar harm a mage child. It was cruelty beyond imagining. The kind of cruelty carried out by weak-willed men until it simply became normal. I have lived in the south this past year and talked to many mages, but the Circle never enraged me until that moment."

Dorian paused.

"When we returned, I saw that boy everywhere. I thought of all the so-called good men and women who made it possible. All the people who found endless justifications. I wanted to scream back at them, 'he was a child, he didn't deserve this. No child does. But especially not him." 

Trevelyan's mouth went dry. The words would not come to his mouth. 

"Lord Pavus," said Josephine, "Ser Erik was not at the Black Tower." 

"No," said Dorian. "But if he had been? He would have done the same thing he did in his own Circle. Looked the other way." 

Ser Erik began to shout, only for Josephine to raise her hand.

"I'm not dense. I know the reason why I've been paraded out for this farce," said Dorian, louder now. "But I won't apologize to you, Ser Erik. You'll forgive me for saying so, but you're a bit of a cunt. And thanks to me, if the Circles ever return, you won't ever be a part of them again." 

Shocked gasps echoed around the hall. 

"I see," said Josephine. "Ser Erik, do you have any response to that?" 

"I was crippled by this man," said Ser Erik. "If he won't apologize, I demand recompense." 

"In what form?" asked Josephine. 

There was calculation in the knight's eyes. No doubt Ser Erik knew there were limits to what he could ask. If he asked for Dorian to be flogged, he would be refused. If he asked for Dorian to be jailed, he would also be refused. That left one option.

"I demand this miscreant be ousted from the Inquisition," said Ser Erik.

The buzz of the crowd was eager now. Sera booed from the back. Cassandra had appeared in a doorway, her hand over her mouth. Vivienne hadn't moved from her chair, but her cigarette had burned down to its stub. 

"I realize that your views on magic and Templars are not the same as my own, Inquisitor, but this cannot stand. If you exile him, neither my father nor I will seek retribution," said Ser Erik. "Send him away." 

"No need for dramatics," said Dorian. "I'll go." 

Josephine blinked. "You'll go?" 

"Yes," said Dorian. "I'm afraid I've made a mess. I hoped to be the Tevinter who would prove the south's perceptions of my people wrong, but my temper got the better of me. No doubt I've landed you in hot water and weakened your position."

Trevelyan couldn't speak. 

"I believe, deeply, in the Inquisition," said Dorian. "And I believe in you, Inquisitor. For that reason, I'll spare you the discomfort of having to compromise on my behalf." 

_Empty_ , said the Knight-Commander. _He was always your greatest weakness._

"Very well," whispered Trevelyan. "May you serve Tevinter as faithfully and bravely as you served us."

Dorian bowed. 

"I believe that settles the matter, Ser Erik," said Trevelyan. "Dismissed." 

He rose, and the great hall erupted into chatter. Varric and Bull pushed through the crowd to Dorian. Ser Erik's friends patted his back.

Trevelyan ignored them all. He quickly returned to his tower. 

* * *

_Empty. Emotions are the mind's dysfunction. Pour them out like dirty water-_

He pushed open his bedroom door. 

_Pour out fear, pour out resentment-_

He tore the sash from his waist and shrugged off his ceremonial cloak with one arm. 

_Pour out love._

He stood in the middle of his room. He wouldn't have to worry about Dorian revealing his past anymore. The man was leaving. His shameful exit would overshadow any words that left his mouth after today.

And the best part was that Dorian had done it to himself. 

It was a sacrifice in the truest sense of the word. He'd removed himself as the source of conflict so that Trevelyan wouldn't have to make the hard choice. Now, Dorian would gather his things and ride out of Skyhold forever. A ship would take him back across the Amaranthine, past the Black Tower once again, all the way home.

This was what he wanted, wasn't it? The ultimate solution to the problem. No more worrying about Dorian keeping secrets. No more dodging questions. No more walks around the castle ramparts. No more long talks about magical theory in the library. No more lazy mornings wrapped around each other in bed. 

It was over. The Black Tower had exacted its final price from him, and he had paid it. And now...

His advisors could deal with the formalities on their own. Let them send a messenger when it was time to say goodbye.

Until then, his mind was on fire. He needed a distraction.

Paperwork was out of the question. But something simpler...

His pack sat in the corner where he had thrown it the day before. His duster was still in there. He could try to repair the holes. It would be meticulous work, and quiet. 

He unbuckled the pack's flap. The smell of unwashed smallclothes hit his nose. He pulled the drawstring wide and dumped everything out. Clothes fell in a heap. Coins bounced across the floor and rolled into the fireplace. Crushed elfroot coughed powdery into the air. The duster, musty with rat and mildew, stretched out like a strip of dead skin. Trevelyan picked it up- 

Only for a flash of blue to catch his eye. 

The blue peeked out from under one of his dirty shirts. He put the duster aside, lifted the shirt, and a piece of sea glass fell to the floor. He picked it up and held it in his palm.

It was dark blue as a sapphire. 

He turned the glass between his fingers, his face caught in its facets. When he was a boy, he had found a piece just like this, and taken it out every single day from its dusty little box like it was treasure. It was from a time he barely remembered, when he was innocent and happy.

He recalled Dorian walking up and down the beach at Seal Rock. He recalled also pushing past him, ignoring Dorian saying he had a surprise for him. 

_Empty_ , whispered the Knight-Commander. _There was no 'you' before me. It's just a piece of glass. A little piece of trash, like you._

Trevelyan curled his fist around the sea glass until it cut into his palm. 

_Empty_ , du Lac whispered. _You are nothing and no one._

His eyes stung. The temptation to cling to the Knight-Commander's words was terrible. He wanted to numb himself, block everything out, push every thought of Dorian Pavus and his meddling kindness as far from his center as he could. 

But what if Cole was right? What if he had been hurting himself all these years? What if the reason he was numb had less to do with the Templars and more to do with his fear of being hurt again? 

He had been so sure that if he trusted anyone they would betray him. And so he had let the Knight-Commander's words repeat in his mind over and over, building a wall between him and the world brick by brick. He had always assumed that the mantra gave him clarity, and maybe it did, but at the cost of ever feeling anything good ever again. 

The words didn't change the past. They didn't change the fact that the world hated mages. All they did was ensure that he remained exactly as he was, unchanging, unfeeling, trapped in a block of ice that never melted.

He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to remember what had been done to him. 

But the grief was real. 

He hated it all so much. He hated his friends for shrugging at the crimes of the Circle. He hated his advisors for telling him to be gentle with the Inquisition's few Templars. He hated that nothing he said was ever quite enough for them. No matter how their faces paled, the thought of mages suffering did not alarm them half as much as the thought of mages unchained. They had never, not once, lifted a finger without his prodding. 

But Dorian had never betrayed him.

Dorian had searched for sea glass on a cold beach, because he knew somewhere inside Trevelyan was a lonely boy who had once lost everything. He had fought a Templar for no reason other than he couldn't stand the sight of one. He had given up his dream of helping the Inquisition because he didn't want to endanger Trevelyan's position at court. 

_Empty_ , whispered the Knight-Commander. 

"No," said Trevelyan. 

* * *

It took the crowd in the great hall a few seconds to realize the Inquisitor had returned. It hushed as he strode up the dais to his throne and sat down. 

Josephine, who had been speaking to Leliana, resumed her post without hesitation. "Inquisitor?" 

He could hear the question underneath her professionalism. He had never done anything like this before. The Inquisitor was consistent, unwavering. Ser Erik stared up at him from amidst his throng of friends. Dorian, likewise, surrounded by the companions of the inner circle, gave Trevelyan his full attention. The whispering, conniving, throng of jackals who would tear him apart at a moment's notice now waited on baited breath to hear what he had to say. 

"It occurs to me that I was remiss in my judgement," said Trevelyan. 

All the air left the room. 

"I omitted context from the judgement, and in doing so, also omitted true justice from the proceedings," said Trevelyan. "Lord Pavus, you said that you struck Ser Erik out of anger for what you witnessed in the Black Tower's past, correct?" 

Dorian glanced around at Sera, Bull, and Varric, as if for proof that he wasn't dreaming. "Yes," he said. 

"Revenge?" asked Trevelyan.

"Yes." 

"For the boy?" asked Trevelyan. 

Dorian gazed up at him with bruised eyes. "Yes." 

Trevelyan could wave his hand, and the crowd would disperse. He could tell them to fall on their knees and bow to him, and they would. He could brush this all under the rug with a flick of his wrist. 

But Dorian would not stop fighting. Even if Trevelyan gave up on himself again and again, Dorian would carry on in his stead.

He would fight for Trevelyan, because he believed Trevelyan deserved it. 

"You and I traveled back seventeen years ago, to when I was a boy in the Circle," said Trevelyan. "You saw first hand what the Templars did to their charges there." 

A sea of faces mooned up at him. Trevelyan hesitated for one moment. 

Then he squeezed the sea glass in his hand.

"You saw the results of the Templar Order's secret experiments on living mages, including a vivisection on a child by no less than the Knight-Commander himself?" asked Trevelyan. 

Dorian nodded. 

"You saw the Knight-Commander cut my head open and give me this scar?" asked Trevelyan. 

A gasp rippled through the crowd. Cassandra's jaw dropped. 

"And out of grief for that sight, you sought vengeance on those who carried out injustice and hid it from the world?" asked Trevelyan. 

"I did," said Dorian.

"You injured Ser Erik today out of loyalty to me?" asked Trevelyan. "Even though I have often been disloyal to myself?" 

"Good thing one of us has a little initiative," said Dorian. 

Trevelyan rose and walked down the dais. He stooped, put his good shoulder under Dorian's arm, and supported his weight. Dorian was damp with sweat and blood all over. Trevelyan didn't care. He put his aching, swollen arm around his waist. 

"I believe I can forgive you this trespass," said Trevelyan. "In light of incredible circumstance." 

He helped Dorian limp to the tower door. They were at the door when Ser Erik bellowed, 

"This is an outrage! You sat in judgement- is this your idea of justice, Inquisitor?"

Trevelyan turned slowly to face him. "My justice is what allows you to still have your head on your shoulders, breathing my air. Considering we are at war with Templars, I would watch your tone. You should be grateful we let you in the front door."

Ser Erik paled at that. 

"Dismissed," said Trevelyan, and left them there. 

* * *

"Careful," said Trevelyan. 

Dorian winced with every step. He bit his lip, and Trevelyan wondered if his ribs were broken. 

"Just a few more steps," said Trevelyan. 

Dorian didn't joke. He kept his eyes closed, breathing hard through his mouth. Trevelyan led him into the bedroom, then swung the door shut behind them, warding it.

"Just a few more steps-" 

"Stop saying that," hissed Dorian. 

Trevelyan got up the stairs and eased him down on the sofa. Unlacing Dorian's tunic, he lifted it off him and gasped.

Dorian's ribs were black and blue. They looked like someone had kicked him over and over with a steel-toed boot.

"Who did this?" said Trevelyan.

"The ex-Templar with the silly face tattoo," said Dorian. "He visited me in my cell. Apparently he and Ser Erik trained at the same academy." 

Trevelyan made a mental note to have Ser Rylen flogged within an inch of his life. 

"Wait here." Trevelyan went and washed his hands in the basin. He opened the small herbalist chest beside his bed and pulled out bandages, ground elfroot, and a healing potion. He grabbed a wine bottle by the neck for good measure. 

Setting the supplies down on the table, he passed Dorian the healing potion. Dorian downed it in one swig, and within moments relaxed. Trevelyan handed him the wine next. "Drink." 

"My teeth hurt," said Dorian. 

"As long as they're not cracked, you'll be fine. Drink." 

Dorian took the bottle and uncorked it. He sipped, made a face, and swallowed. 

Trevelyan inspected the injuries on his chest and picked the ugliest one: a lump the size of a goose egg over Dorian's ribs. He placed his hands gently on the knot and forced cold healing magic into it. Dorian hissed. He reclined his head on the back of the sofa, staring glassily up at the ceiling. 

"I'm sorry," said Dorian. "I never wanted to force the truth out of you." 

"Didn't you?" asked Trevelyan. 

"Yes and no. I wanted you to tell the world what was done to you, but the moment you did, I felt like an ass. You shouldn't have been forced to do that on my behalf." 

"For what it's worth, I owe you an apology," said Trevelyan. 

Dorian lifted his head, bewildered. "Me?" 

"Yes. Can you sit up for me?" 

Dorian did. Trevelyan spread elfroot sap over the bruises and cuts with his finger, then tied a bandage around Dorian's chest. 

"I should have trusted you from the start. All you wanted was for me to be honest with you, the way you are with me, and I pushed you away. You're the only person who's ever stood up for me." 

"Jack-" 

"No. Listen." Trevelyan sat back. His head was full of tumbling waves. The desire to rely on the mantra, to push away the dozens of emotions vying for his attention, was powerful, but he smothered the urge. "I don't know how to talk about these things. Words aren't enough. Every time I try to describe what they did to me, it's too small. But...I think I've also been hurting myself by shutting you out. And I know I hurt you. So, I'm sorry." 

"No." Dorian leaned forward, winced. "None of this is your fault. You're so good and brave. You deserve everything, amatus." 

Tears pricked Trevelyan's eyes. His chest was choked with a dozen different emotions, fuller than it had been in years. He didn't want them. He didn't want to feel this much. It was dangerous, something bad would happen- he'd be rejected, hurt, betrayed. He didn't want to feel this exposed-

But it was real. The last time he'd felt real, he'd been nine years old, searching for sea glass on the beach, back when the world seemed kind. 

"I can't offer you anything." Tears ran down his face. "All I have is ugliness. There's so much mess inside me, Dorian." 

"Try." Dorian brushed the tears off his face. 

"It was..." His throat tightened. _Empty, empty, empty_ \- he pushed the words aside. "It was horrible. They hurt-" He wanted to say 'they hurt mages,' or 'the Circle was bad for everyone,' but forced himself to say, "-me. They hurt me. And then it didn't hurt at all, and that was worse. I didn't know it, but it was worse." 

Dorian cupped his face with a bruised hand. 

"I tried so hard not to feel, and it helped me survive. But I don't want to be like that anymore. I want to be with-" 

Dorian kissed him. It tasted of blood, sweat, and wine. Trevelyan kissed him back, drowning

He had been right about the world, and its dangers, and its hatred of mages. 

But he had been wrong about Dorian.

* * *

Later, when he had finished healing Dorian's face wounds, he sat with him on the sofa and took the sea glass out of his pocket.

"Ah," said Dorian. "I was hoping you'd find that." 

"I still can't believe you spent hours walking up and down a freezing beach covered in seal shit to find it." 

"That makes two of us." Dorian ran a finger down the smooth edge of the glass. "But I liked your story. I'd hoped you might tell me others." 

Trevelyan did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this story during lock-down and wasn't sure if anyone would be interested, given how much of it is non-canonical. I was blown away by the support! 
> 
> I also wrote a coda and a sequel to this story, but I'm not sure when either will be up. Trying to keep to a weekly(ish) schedule was tough for me, so I might wait until both are fully edited before posting them.
> 
> In any case, thanks to everyone who left comments and kudos. One more chapter left. :)


	11. Chapter 11

The sun was rising over the mountains when Trevelyan walked into the war room the next morning. His advisors stood in a line on the other side of the war table, none of them smiling. 

"Do you have a report for me?" asked Trevelyan. 

"We do," said Josephine. 

Trevelyan kept his face a mask. "Proceed." 

"Ser Erik and his men rode out of Skyhold late last night," said Josephine. "They took a dozen of our soldiers with them, as well as the Duke of Lydes and his retinue. They made sure to ride over an Inquisition flag on the way out and declared Skyhold to be a den of blood magic, sin, and heresy."

"They didn't make off with any of the silverware, did they?" asked Trevelyan.

"None that we can tell," said Josephine.

Trevelyan picked up the sugar tongs from the tea tray and plinked two sugarcubes into his teacup. The incident, dramatic as it was, had not woken anyone in the castle. Rather than face the Inquisitor in broad daylight, Ser Erik and his co-conspirators had chosen the darkest hour of the night to abdicate, with only the night guards as witness. The guards themselves had been more confused than alarmed, assuming at first that Ser Erik and his comrades were riding out on an urgent mission. There were no orders to bar leave from the castle, so no one stopped them. 

"Where are they headed?" asked Trevelyan.

"According to our scouts, they struck off on the eastern road. They will most likely ride for Jader and take a boat to Val Chevin," said Josephine.

"And then?" asked Trevelyan.

"And then they will poison their liege lords against us," said Leliana. "Or, they may decide to declare war on the Inquisition." 

"I've given the order to hang the deserter soldiers, if they're ever caught," said Cullen. "Though they will hardly be the last to abandon the ranks after what happened yesterday." 

"Nor will Val Chevin and Lydes be the most important allies we lose," said Josephine. "This will very likely cost us the Winter Palace."

Trevelyan poured tea into his teacup. After Dorian had fallen asleep the night before, he had sat up in bed, thinking over the judgement. There was no understating how badly the Inquisition would suffer for his decision. As a mage, his reputation was always a breath away from destruction, and here at last was proof of his degeneracy. He had chosen the guilty Tevinter over the innocent Templar. It didn't get much more damning than that.

Holding his teacup to his lips, he inhaled the spiced steam and took a sip. Setting the teacup down in its saucer, he said, "Well, that's dandy." 

His advisors exchanged a glance.

"Jack," said Josephine. "What happened yesterday was a grave error on all our parts, but we don't blame you for it."

"That's a pretty lie, Lady Montilyet," said Trevelyan.

"It is the truth," said Josephine. "As your advisors, it is our responsibility to look out for your well-being. We knew you were in extreme emotional distress before you left for the Black Tower. It was a mistake to ignore that, and an even greater mistake to send you there in the first place." 

"There was a rift," said Trevelyan. "No amount of emotional distress would have changed that." 

"No, but we should have been more direct with you. Had we done so, we might have unburdened your fears, or at least alleviated your distrust of us. The situation would not have deteriorated as it did." 

Trevelyan stared into his teacup. The sunlight circled the gently sloshing tea like a fish in a pond.

"Mistrusting you strikes me as wise, considering you have always had me at a disadvantage," he said. 

"Jack-" started Josephine. 

"There have been discussions, some in this very room, that I remember sharply, that you seem not to remember at all," said Trevelyan. "Less than a year ago, you argued amongst yourselves over whether or not I should have a phylactery taken, for my own good." 

"After the destruction of Haven and the blizzard, it seemed a practical precaution," said Cullen. 

"To you, yes," said Trevelyan. "Were all the discussions about whether I should have Templars posted outside my door in Haven also practical? Or that one afternoon when you discussed whether Tranquility was a possible solution in the unlikely event that the Anchor became unstable?"

Cullen fell silent at that. 

"You forgot. I did not," said Trevelyan. "Nor have I forgotten every humiliating argument I've ever had with you three about granting the rebel mages the most basic of concessions. You wish me to trust you? From my perspective, you have done less than nothing to earn it." 

Trevelyan finished his tea. The only sound in the war room was the trill of a goldfinch in the aspen tree outside, sweetening the morning air.

"Thank you, Inquisitor," said Leliana. "We will take that under consideration." 

"Thank _you_ ," said Trevelyan. "And in return, I will endeavor to be more honest." 

He set his teacup and saucer on the table. 

"There's nothing we can do about Ser Erik now," said Trevelyan. "That door is closed. What we can do is find a way to save face. No doubt the faithful are already whispering that I'm either a traumatized lunatic or an incredible liar. I propose we spent the rest of the morning clearing the air about the Black Tower amongst ourselves. It will at least give us a foundation of common knowledge to work with before we strategize." 

"You're....willing to talk about your life in the Circle?" asked Cullen.

"I am," said Trevelyan. "Though we might have to take a late lunch." 

It took most of the morning to give his full account. He tried to make it as unfiltered as possible. Trevelyan told them about the nature of the experiments conducted in the tower, feeling as if he was a thousand miles away from his body while his lips formed the words. Josephine took notes. Cullen's brows lowered at the mention of certain names. Leliana simply listened.

By the end of it, Trevelyan's soul felt sick. He poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher, his throat raw from talking. Cullen, who had not met his eyes in over an hour, left the table and went to a window. Josephine stared at her piles of notes. Only Leliana seemed unaffected by the tale. She alone had not flinched at the word "vivisection."

"I cannot believe you lived through that," said Josephine. 

"That makes two of us," said Trevelyan.

"And du Lac," said Josephine. "Why would he do such a thing? I just can't fathom....what was the purpose of it all?"

"The Seekers seemed to think they were close to a breakthrough about the connection between mage bodies and the Fade," said Trevelyan. "Why they thought they would succeed where the necromancers of Nevarra and the Tevinter Imperium have failed, I don't know. In the end, it was butchery. They did it because they could."

There was more he could say on the subject. Du Lac had been chatty, and Trevelyan remembered a great deal of his theories, but it didn't seem worth it to air those out loud. 

"What now?" Cullen stood at the window with his back to them.

"Now you know the truth," said Trevelyan. 

"But how do we wield it?" said Cullen. "Everyone involved with the Black Tower except for you is dead. No matter how we choose to deal with this situation, we have no proof. It'll be hard to bring the faithful back to your side without it." 

"A fair but moot point," said Leliana. "There was ample evidence of the horrors at Kirkwall, Dairsmuid, and the White Spire, and it did not make people sympathetic. What matters is narrative. We need to persuade people to care. Once they do, they will be more likely to regard the Inquisitor's actions in a positive light." 

"The Black Tower mattered to few before yesterday. It still won't matter to most people," said Cullen. 

"Then we make it matter," said Trevelyan. "What we lack in proof we make up for in conviction. Tell the faithful that it was the worst crime the Circle ever committed. Tell them that we side with the victims and not the monsters. Remind them that the Inquisition stands for justice, including justice for those who died unmourned behind closed doors." 

"A sound strategy," said Josephine.

"It's not just strategy," said Trevelyan. "It's the truth. The mages who died in that tower deserve outrage."

"Including you?" asked Josephine.

Trevelyan hesitated. 

"It was a rhetorical question," said Josephine. "I simply meant that we should include you among those who deserve justice." 

"Is that your belief, Lady Montilyet?" asked Trevelyan.

"Yes," said Josephine, firmly. "It is."

Cullen opened his mouth, then closed it. Trevelyan wondered if he had planned to agree with her, then thought better of it. Perhaps he knew it would not be received warmly.

"There will be those who demand a justification for sparing Dorian his exile," said Leliana. "How will you respond to that?"

"The truth," said Trevelyan. "That Dorian acted out of love, and so did I. If they fault me for that, so be." 

His advisors were silent for a long time. He could see the gears turning in each of their heads.

"Very well, Inquisitor," she said. "My agents will get to work at once." 

"Mine as well. In the meantime, there's still the Winter Palace to prepare for," said Josephine. 

"And won't that be fun," murmured Trevelyan. 

* * *

Their welcome at the Winter Palace was an icy one. 

Word of Ser Erik's misfortune traveled ahead of them on the road. And once Lord Belanger found out what the Inquisition had done to his son, it wasn't long before the rest of the Orlesian court learned as well.

The Council of Heralds wanted nothing to do with them. No matter how Leliana and Josephine tried to charm their way into the good graces of the court, the gates of diplomacy remained closed.

The plan had been to save Celene's life and court her as an ally against Corypheus. Now, as the clock ticked closer to midnight, it became obvious that they were going to fail.

"What are we going to do?" whispered Cullen, as the upteenth noble turned their backs on them. "We're no closer to finding the assassin than we were hours ago." 

Trevelyan snagged a glass of wine off a passing tray. He was bruised from falling off a garden trellis and couldn't find it in himself to reassure his commander at that moment. As he scanned the sea of masks for some clue as to the identity of the assassin, he noticed a familiar elven woman stepping out onto a balcony.

"Wait here," he said.

He went out onto the balcony, and found Briala there, tracing a finger along the threads of a spiderweb that hung amidst the dark leaves of a gardenia bush. 

"Inquisitor," she said. "I see you made it back to the ball in one piece. Though, you are nearly as despised among the court as I am." 

"Not nearly as invisible, however," he said. "You've been as busy in the palace tonight as I have, yet no one seems to notice you."

"True," she said. "They see you as a dragon, while I am a mouse. Is it true you are insane?" 

"Is that what they're saying?" he asked. 

"That and more." The moonlight reflected like quicksilver off her mask. "They say you are a Templar experiment who escaped his cage- a freak dreaming of resurrecting Tevinter glory. There are more salacious rumors of course, most involving blood rituals and virgins, but the theme remains the same." 

Trevelyan had no doubt of that. While his advisors' counter-narrative had drawn greater support from those who already supported the mages, it had driven a deeper wedge between himself and the pious who the Inquisition relied on for patronage. Whether the Inquisition would survive long-term remained to be seen, but here, at least, it could not be more obvious that Trevelyan was poison.

"Why are you here?" he asked. "Truly?" 

"For my people," she said. "All we ask is for a seat a the table. A chance to decide our fate." 

"By undermining both sides of a civil war?" 

"Orlais's war is to decide who will sit on a throne built on the backs of elves. If they will not treat us as people, then they must be reminded of how inconvenient a million mice can be." She turned back to the spiderweb, drawing a fingernail along its anchor thread, until the striped spider crawled out from between the leaves. "Not that you would understand."

"I do, actually." 

Trevelyan raised his hand and wreathed it in flame. Its orange light licked the edge of her mask, illuminating the sheen of her sweat beneath it. "We both want what's best for our people." 

"You cannot compare the war the mages started to the plight of elves." 

"Perhaps not." Trevelyan extinguished the flame. "But we share a certain understanding." 

"Oh?" The corner of her lip curled. "And that is?" 

"Freedom is not given, but taken." 

She glanced at him. There was quick calculation in those eyes. Then she reached into the bush and crushed the spider with her bare hand. 

* * *

Celene's death was the last thing Trevelyan had wanted for the Winter Palace, but it had its advantages. As he stood beside Gaspard with the blood of Florianne de Chalons on his hands, the gazes of the assembled nobles below turned fearful.

 _Good_ , he thought. _I'll be every nightmare you ever had about mages if it means winning this war._

The new sinister atmosphere followed him back to Skyhold. If the nobility still had issue with how he handled the judgement with Ser Erik, they dared not mention it again. His bloody victory at the Winter Palace, as well as the rumors that he had consorted with a she-elf witch, cast a pall. The singers now sang ballads about the apostate whose countless eyes flew on a thousand black wings, while his ears scurried behind the walls on little mouse feet.

Trevelyan liked that one so much he asked Maryden to play it whenever he entered the tavern. 

* * *

There were still loose ends to clean up. Trevelyan met with Fiona and the most senior enchanters of the mage rebellion and answered their questions about the Black Tower.

The Mage Collective sent him a letter, in their usual cryptic fashion, that said only, "we'll be in touch." 

Ser Rylen was flogged in the yard and shipped out to a lonely post in the Western Approach. 

Gradually, the castle returned to normal.

It was a relief, Trevelyan supposed, to no longer fear people finding out the truth. Now, they simply saw him as he was: a damaged man who may or may not have been a little unhinged. The mages were more loyal to him than ever, and the devout more aware that they lived under the talon of a dangerous man. They would try to tear him down for it sooner or later, but that had always been a given. At least he knew where they would strike now. 

Throughout it all, Dorian remained his solace.

The Tevinter hadn't gone with Trevelyan to the Winter Palace, at his own request, citing that he would only make things worse. While no one dared attack him, the faithful despised him more than ever, and made sure he knew it. Their loathing bothered Dorian, Trevelyan could tell, and their accusations that Trevelyan had invented the tale of the Black Tower to save him bothered him most of all. He suffered it with dignity, if with a great deal of complaining. 

But there was a problem. 

"Not that I don't mind the company, but there are other people who would love to bask in your gloom," said Dorian one day, in the library.

"What do you mean?" asked Trevelyan.

"I mean, you've been avoiding your companions. And they've been avoiding you. At this rate, I'll be your only friend, and you'll be wanting to spend all your time with me. Won't that be tedious?"

"I haven't been avoiding anyone. I've been busy," said Trevelyan. 

"Hmm." 

"If Sera, Blackwall, and the rest want to speak with me, I'm not exactly hard to find," said Trevelyan.

But they didn't seem to want to speak with him. As far as he could tell, Trevelyan's revelations about the Black Tower had driven the rest of his companions away. Varric curled his nose whenever he saw him coming. Blackwall ducked into side rooms, closets, and hedges if need be. Cassandra had all but barricaded herself in her quarters since the judgement, spending all hours of the day writing letters for reasons no one other than Leliana knew.

He couldn't blame them. 

What were they supposed to say to him? He who had never encouraged warmth, who sniffed at kindness as if it was a trap, who bit their hands at offered sympathy? He was good for casual conversation, reliable in a fight, but when it came to real friendship, deep friendship, he was an animal with bared teeth. One who challenged too many institutions they found comfortable. 

The only one who had sought him out was Solas. The other mage had asked him to go for a ride in the forest below Skyhold before they left for Halamshiral. They had both ridden on their harts, Trevelyan his red, Solas on his Tirashin Swiftwind. The forests below Skyhold were quiet and devoid of game, and they had ridden together, the jingle of their reins and the soft chop of their mounts' hooves in the earth the only sound. They rode for the rest of the day in silence, until they found a stream, and there let their mounts cool their ankles in the flashing water. As they rode back to the castle, Solas had reached across the distance between them, and squeezed Trevelyan's hand.

"You're not allowed to chastise me," said Trevelyan to Dorian. "When was the last time you spoke to Cullen?" 

The smile vanished from Dorian's face. He had not been in the same room as Cullen since the day of judgement, nor would he ever be again, it seemed. 

"I'm not like you," Dorian said. "I can't bottle up the fact that I want to strangle him every time I look at him." 

"We'll make a rebel mage of you yet," said Trevelyan, and ran the toe of his boot up the back of Dorian's leg. 

"Do be a dear and talk to the others," said Dorian. "You're pretty to look at, but terrible for my work ethic." 

* * *

He went to his companions one by one.

Sera _cringed_ from him when he touched her shoulder at the tavern, nearly choking on her turkey leg. Blackwall searched for an escape route in the barn, and, finding none, fiddled with the carving knife in his hand until he pricked himself. 

"Do you have something to say to me?" Trevelyan asked each of them. 

Blackwall stumbled his way through a dozen apologies, telling Trevelyan how awful it must have been to be experimented on like an animal, growing more sullen as he spoke on the innocence of children. He glanced up at Trevelyan from under heavy brows as if expecting a blow. 

Sera, after pacing around her room, invited him onto her roof. She shared a box of grainy raisin cookies with him, asking stiffly about Empress Whatsit and the new Emperor Gas Fart. Then, she asked if she could touch his scar. 

He almost said no, but an instinct urged him to allow it. She reached out, tentatively, and pressed her finger along the scar until she found the ridge of jagged bone where the skull had been fused back together. She snatched her hand back and turned her face away. 

"They did that to you?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. 

She sniffed loudly and threw a cookie to a crow in the yard below. "I'll save an arrow for the next kettle-head we meet. Just for you." 

Trevelyan blinked. Sera never spoke against the Templars in defense of mages, not even for him. Her dislike of them stemmed from their brutalization of "normal people," not mages.

"Thank you," he said, meaning it. "Can we please stop eating these cookies?" 

"Ugh, yes. Taste like unwashed velvet." She upturned the box, raining crumbs down on the baffled crow below.

* * *

Not everyone was so gracious. Varric seemed to hate him with a newfound intensity that he refused to explain. When Trevelyan approached him at his writing table in the great hall, the dwarf said that the Black Tower certainly explained why Trevelyan was the way he was. 

"Let's just hope you don't get a lot of people killed because of it," said Varric. 

Bull was just as cold. "That's fucked up," was the most Trevelyan got out of him, with the Qunari pulling away from the conversation with the obvious interest of a man trying to avoid conflict. 

Vivienne informed him that what happened at the Black Tower was indeed a travesty, if what he claimed was true and not a ruse to further defame the Templar Order for his own ends. 

Trevelyan, who had little to say to the three of them one-on-one usually, had even less to say now, and bid them good day. 

* * *

"You're healing," said Cole, the wind on the battlements buffeting his hat brim. 

"Am I?" said Trevelyan. 

"In some ways," said Cole. "It's not trapped inside you anymore. _Limbs stretching, path untrammeled, heart aching from disuse_....You've changed." 

"I suppose." He did feel different, sometimes in uncomfortable ways. He was trying to be more vulnerable, and it flew in the face of every instinct he had.

And yet far from driving his friends away, it somehow brought most of them closer together.

"I'm sorry I put you through....everything," said Trevelyan. "I demanded a lot from you, unfairly."

"I wanted to help," said Cole. "And I learned a lot."

"Good things, I hope?"

Cole considered. "No. But true things." 

* * *

"May I speak with you?" asked Cassandra. 

Trevelyan looked up from the quartermaster's log. The Seeker stood in the doorway, dressed in a roughspun tunic and breeches. It had been nearly five weeks since the judgement, and during that time Cassandra had neither spoken to him or allowed herself to be caught in the same wing of the castle. 

"In private," she said. 

Trevelyan set the log down. "Lead the way." 

She took him to the smithy, which was empty. They sat together at the little table beside her cot in the attic, drinking from a bottle of wine.

"How are you?" she asked. 

"All things considered, fine. Yourself?" 

"I have been thinking about what you said. About the Black Tower. I owe you an apology," she said. 

Trevelyan said nothing. 

"No doubt my words offend you," said Cassandra. "There's nothing I can say that can undo what was done-"

"No, there isn't," he said. 

She grimaced. He sensed a flare of the old defiance in her, but she checked herself. 

"I didn't want to speak with you until I had something better than words," she said. "Over the last few weeks, I've been reaching out to my contacts. The Seekers are scattered, many of them lost, but there are still those who live." 

She pulled a vellum messenger bag from under the table and pulled a sheaf of papers from it.

"Many of them claim to have not known about what happened at the Black Tower. They repeated the same story I was given: that it was a prison for delinquent mages. A few even cast aspersions on your story, saying you must be mad, or vengeful, or both. But there was one man, Seeker Urien, a recordkeeper in Val Royeaux, who had information. Lord-Seeker Lambert frequently ordered him to purge records, including those related to the Black Tower. Urien complied, but he was troubled by his orders. He saved some documents." 

Cassandra spread the yellowed parchment on the table. 

"Du Lac was the one who first suggested the Black Tower be used as a research site for experimentation on mages. He requested mages that fit certain criteria. According to Lambert, those mages who were selected were then re-labelled as troubled, or violent, in order to justify their removal from other Circles. In the late Blessed Age, hundreds of mages were sent to du Lac."

"Hundreds?" said Trevelyan. 

"Yes," said Cassandra. "It raised Divine Beatrix's suspicions, so Lambert began to restrict the number of mages sent to du Lac each year. Du lac became less wasteful with his subjects. He might experiment on the same mage over and over again, but he tried to keep them alive as long as possible, as his numbers were far more limited than they were at the start. It frustrated him." 

Trevelyan had always assumed only a few dozen mages had been subjected to du Lac's madness. The idea that hundreds upon hundreds of bones lay at the bottom of the sea around Ostwick was....troubling. 

"Do the records say what happened to all the mages and Templars when the tower fell?" he asked. 

"Yes," she said. "Though the report was heavily censored." 

She drew a single sheaf of yellow parchment from the stack and pushed it before him.

"According to the report, Lambert and du Lac grew increasingly angry with each other. Lambert wanted results, and du Lac was unable to give them to him. Du Lac suspected that it was only a matter of time before Lambert ordered everyone on the island killed in order to hide all evidence of the experiments. On the ninth day of Cloudsreach in 9:39, Du Lac left his Knight-Captain in charge of the Circle and went ashore for the first time in nearly thirty years. He did not return." 

Trevelyan went cold. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, du Lac disappeared," said Cassandra. "He sensed the end was near and fled." 

"He's still out there?" 

"I don't know," said Cassandra. "To my knowledge, no one ever heard of him again."

 _Empty_.

All at once, Trevelyan wanted to stand up, run outside, and keep running. He wanted to fly away, hide, live as a bird in a forest for the rest of his life. Du Lac was alive, he was in the world, and Trevelyan was _empty, empty, empty-_

He reached into his pocket and squeezed the sea glass. 

"I suppose if he ever turns up, the Inquisition will deal with him," said Trevelyan.

"Yes," said Cassandra. "I will personally, should he ever have the misfortune of meeting me." 

Trevelyan rubbed his face. He took a long drink of wine. Cassandra did not rush him. They sat in the warmth of the smithy, listening to the voices of soldiers outside. 

"What happened after du Lac left?" asked Trevelyan. 

"It would seem his absence had a profound effect on the Templars in the tower. If du Lac was permitted to leave the island, why not them? There was apparently a mutiny in the ranks. The mages, perhaps emboldened by du Lac's absence, or perhaps given no choice, fought back. It's hard to say for sure. When the Seekers arrived on the island, there were only a handful of mages and Templars still alive." 

"What became of them?" asked Trevelyan.

"They were killed," said Cassandra. "Du Lac was not wrong. Lambert had always intended to purge the Black Tower, once its experiments outlived their usefulness. But...." 

"What?" asked Trevelyan. 

"The Seekers executed everyone, with the exception of three mages. These mages seemed to be important to Lambert, for some reason. They were taken from the tower. The report says they were to be brought to a Seeker stronghold for examination, but they escaped on the road." 

"Escaped?" asked Trevelyan.

"Yes. They were weak and sickly, so the Seekers underestimated them. They managed to break their shackles in the middle of the night and disappeared into a swamp. They were never found."

"Could they still be alive?" he asked.

"I don't know. I hope so." 

Trevelyan stood and went to the window. He looked out over the Inquisition soldiers, Gray Wardens, elves, merchants, mages, all milling in the yard.

"I think...." he said. "I'd like to find them." 

"You certainly have the resources," she said. "But Jack, please don't get your hopes up. The mages were ill. They had been mutilated terribly. They likely wouldn't have lasted long in the wild." 

"I was mutilated once," he said. "And tortured. And ill. And I made it out alive. I was all by myself for a long, long time. But they had each other."

He turned back to her. 

"Even if all I ever find is their bones, I'd like to try," he said. "Maybe then we can tell the story together." 

* * *

It astonished him, sometimes, to realize he had survived.

It seemed like a story that happened to someone else. He had escaped the tower, and gone back, and despite everything, he was still alive.

It had exposed the rawest, most humiliating depths of his shame, but he had survived that, too, despite the world's desire to undo him. His friends didn't want to hear what had been done to him, but they understood him a little better than before. Dorian did want to hear, and Trevelyan no longer felt the urge to lie about the marks on his body. 

He still dreamed about that place. 

They were the old dreams. He was in the bowels of the tower, the waves rumbling like thunder beyond the walls. Sometimes a Templar pulled him into a dark room. Other times they dragged him off a ladder as he screamed and kicked. Other times he simply lay strapped to a table, crying silent tears as a knife cut into him. 

He awoke from those dreams confused, fighting against invisible hands, a word repeating over and over in his mind. 

But there were other dreams, too.

He was riding a horse down a black beach. The wind was cold, and his brothers were further down the surf, waiting for him to catch up. He was young, no one had hurt him yet, and the future seemed certain. He was the boy, and the boy was him. The great schism of his life had not occurred. There was no gaping maw of emptiness inside him, only innocence.

He awoke from those dreams with tears on his face. He rose from his bed, went to the balcony, and threw open the doors. A flash of light, and the wind lifted him on black wings, carrying him high into the night air. 

He flew around Skyhold, letting the cold wash him clean. He was lost inside, perhaps always would be, tangled in pain he didn't want and had nowhere to put. 

But then Dorian stepped out on the balcony, tugging a robe around himself and searching the skies. 

Trevelyan flew back into his waiting hands. 

  
_"We can hardly bear to look. The shadow may carry the best of the life we have not lived. Go into the basement, the attic, the refuse bin. Find gold there. Find an animal that has not been fed or watered. It is you. This neglected, exiled animal, hungry for attention, is a part of yourself."_ \- Marian Woodman, as quoted by Stephen Cope, in The Great Work of Your Life. 


End file.
